More is not enough...

There was once a stone cutter who was dissatisfied with himself and with his position in life. One day he passed a wealthy merchant's house. Through the open gateway, he saw many fine possessions and important visitors. "How powerful that merchant must be!" thought the stone cutter. He became very envious and wished that he could be like the merchant.

To his great surprise, he suddenly became the merchant, enjoying more luxuries and power than he had ever imagined, but envied and detested by those less wealthy than himself. Soon a high official passed by, carried in a sedan chair, accompanied by attendants and escorted by soldiers beating gongs. Everyone, no matter how wealthy, had to bow low before the procession. "How powerful that official is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be a high official!"

Then he became the high official, carried everywhere in his embroidered sedan chair, feared and hated by the people all around. It was a hot summer day, so the official felt very uncomfortable in the sticky sedan chair. He looked up at the sun. It shone proudly in the sky, unaffected by his presence. "How powerful the sun is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be the sun!"

Then he became the sun, shining fiercely down on everyone, scorching the fields, cursed by the farmers and laborers. But a huge black cloud moved between him and the earth, so that his light could no longer shine on everything below. "How powerful that storm cloud is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be a cloud!"

Then he became the cloud, flooding the fields and villages, shouted at by everyone. But soon he found that he was being pushed away by some great force, and realized that it was the wind. "How powerful it is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be the wind!"

Then he became the wind, blowing tiles off the roofs of houses, uprooting trees, feared and hated by all below him. But after a while, he ran up against something that would not move, no matter how forcefully he blew against it - a huge, towering rock. "How powerful that rock is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be a rock!"

Then he became the rock, more powerful than anything else on earth. But as he stood there, he heard the sound of a hammer pounding a chisel into the hard surface, and felt himself being changed. "What could be more powerful than I, the rock?" he thought.

He looked down and saw far below him the figure of a stone cutter.

Thank you Mavi Gunes ....

Revisiting the past

I rejoined Classmates.com a couple of days ago. One of my girlfriends from HS [ the only one I am still in contact with ] has had a lot of “success” with Classmates… success is a relative term, of course. If one’s aim is to hook-up with people from decades past - people you were forced to spend a good portion of your waking hours with (whether you wanted to or not, by the way) - well, then Classmates is probably a good place to try to do that. And by success, I mean that my friend has made a LOT of contacts with people we used to go to school with. Surprisingly. I don’t mean to be catty, but this girlfriend never struck me as, um, ‘popular’ [ I hate that word ], but then, neither was I, so what do I know? Anyway, I was on the paid Classmates roll call a few years back, and for whatever reason I decided to sign up again, but this time as a freebie [ I was soon to find out that there is no such thing ]. The web site has changed a lot, gotten more sophisticated and more complicated. It’s not as straightforward as it once was – too many bells and whistles for me now, but whatever.

The first thing I did was click on a couple of random names from my high school. Little did I know that those clicks went straight from my finger to the other person’s inbox! Not the stupid Classmates inbox but their actual email inbox! I had been logged in to their real-world inboxes with my real name! OMG. No way did I ever want either of those people to think that I was looking for them… not like that, anyway… especially ‘him’. Oh well, I told myself, Classmates is for losers [ and yes, I am one of those losers, apparently ] so I was pretty sure the object of my curiosity would never go to that website and see that I had clicked his name. He certainly was no loser. He was way too cool to do a loser-thing like that. Or so I thought. Until his name appeared in my real-world email inbox this morning, acknowledging that I had clicked his icon.

I thought about this all day. I obsessed about it. I am a stalker. This is a guy I sent a love letter to when I was 12 and he was 18. He was my band teacher, for god’s sake. And now here I am, a middle-aged grandmother, clicking this guy’s icon after 43 years. How sad. What a loser I must be. I suddenly wanted to email him and tell him that I really am not a stalker – and then maybe add that the thought of him still makes me smile, not because I still have a crush on him, but because he was a really nice guy and could have taken advantage of a snarky situation but didn’t. But in thinking it through, I decided it wasn’t necessary to offer any explanation, for in truth, this man, who is now in his 60’s [ lol ] probably didn't even wonder who the heck blahblah blahblah was. I know he wouldn’t remember me.

The funny thing is, as I thought about this situation today, I realized that when I recognized this man’s name in my Outlook inbox this morning, all I felt was mild embarrassment. My heart didn’t skip a beat; my breathing rate did not increase. It was a little sad, in a way. This is a guy whose memory literally ‘dominated’ my entire adolescence. I went though high school more or less 'boyfriend-less' because of him – because no other guy was good enough. I carried that torch for 6 years, until the day I met the man I eventually married, the same one I’ve been married to for 38 years. And, as I think about it, they are pretty much alike. A lot alike, actually.

They say you never forget you first, true love. Songs are written and sung about it. Movies are made about it. But I think, now, it really is true. I fell in love with this guy when I was 12 years old. The last time I saw him I was just 14 – he had come back to town to attend a homecoming game [ he was serving in Vietnam at the time ]. Even after that stupid, embarrassing love letter that should have made him run the other way as fast as he could, he was a decent guy. He came to sit with the band – I was thrilled that he sat next to me the entire game. He gave me a big hug when it was over and then, like the gentleman he was, he waved good-by and walked away.

Maybe my heart is beating just a little faster after all.