Home

When you find a place you call home, you love it not because your lover lives there, not because your family resides in it, not because it is a beautiful place, or the culture is immense, the people are kind or the weather is pleasant. No, none of that really comes into account, for when you find the place you call home, only one thing matters and it is INSPIRATION.

Your home gives you this energy, which empowers you to outperform yourself. It is the place where your creativity blossoms, and where your intellect flourishes.

When you find the place you call home you know it intrinsically and it could look like a mansion, a shed, or an entire city, but one thing is for sure, when you find the place you call home, listen to how inspired you are, and you’ll thrive indefinitely.

Reminiscing

There’s this man from the past I am thinking about

A trophy in his hand and a movie sold-out

He left to be someone, to create, to achieve

And what he found instead, was above all he believed

He inspired me then, he inspires me now

He left a hole in me, this I can’t disavow

I miss our convos, his POV so shrewd

I’d call him every day, if that wouldn’t be rude

I have so many questions I want answered by him

I need his keenest advice to soothe my mind so grim

But to talk to him I must, travel to the other coast

Why of all the men I know, I still admire him the most?

Encounters: Passenger

Today was a plane day. Her heart was heavy to leave this city she loved, the old friends she missed and the new ones she made. While at the airport, she was reminiscing about the week that just past and what reflection it had brought to her mind and change to her soul. She was traveling alone and sat in a full plane, next to the window, where the space for her little body was wide, but not before she had to ask a gentleman to switch seats for seating in her assigned one.

In her row were two men, who didn’t seem to know each other. One looked older and seemed to be ready to devour a novel even before the plane departed, so absorbed he was by its cover. The other was young and captivated by what he could see while glimpsing at the window. The sun was setting and the colors in the sky reminded of the shimmering ones of a distant galaxy.

“Wow! That looks beautiful!” he said softly. “I’m sorry?” she asked, not sure she heard the words he was articulating. He smiled and repeated his sentence as if he was talking directly at her.

Their conversation started then and lasted for 5 hours, until they landed.

At the beginning, I don’t think either one knew this conversation was going to be so rich that it would instill change within themselves.

He lived close to Napa, owned 6 acres of land, had an orchard, cows, chicken, and was using the land to plant vegetables and vines. He had several second hand tractors, which he repaired on his own, and had a dream of being completely self sufficient with his farm and eventually increase its acreage ample enough to produce a vineyard. This was his second time ever on a plane, which he took to go to New York. His first time was back in February, when he went to his best friend’s wedding and had a chance encounter with his current girlfriend, whom he was visiting now. You could tell he loved her, and already had a vision for her in his life. He was waiting for her to finish school, so he could marry her and bring her to his farm close to Napa, where she would serve as his support, ought to take care of him, the house and their future kids, but he didn’t want her to work at all.

 The girl on the plane was a little shocked, as she was a city girl and could never imagine living a life at home. She learned a lot from this conversation, about who she was and wanted to be, but also about how much her level of tolerance and acceptance of other beings had increased with time. She saw her life as complicated, was told by her friends that she was a busy woman, very independent and threatening for some. She never viewed herself that way though, and thought that maybe her dream life might seem a little unconventional for some, but in her head, she thought it was a perfectly normal one, already in place and lived by different people on this planet, and this conversation, in her mind, made it even more valuable.

As he was speaking about his life, their conversation changed and ran a little deeper. They started to talk about spirituality and the minute she shared with this man that she was Jewish, his mouth dropped. She was not really surprised by his reaction, as she had witnessed so many similar instances in the past. He seemed to be happy about this encounter though, because he had never met a Jew in his life, let alone having the opportunity of speaking with one about spiritual beliefs. They talked about the idea of God, about evolution, about science, and about Quantum theory, then, started sharing more personal details about their lives. He liked her ideas about family and how both parties in a couple need to be the back bone of each other, both equally supportive of each other, and not there to ‘serve’ one another. She told him that for a couple to work, both parties needed to receive something from the union and feel they are equally contributing to the world. Even if he didn’t see his life that way he listened, but didn’t believe than an ‘independent’ woman could be a good role model for children. She took his life and dreams as an example and asked if she had shared his views with his new girlfriend, whom he wanted to make his wife. He said she knew everything about him and accepted him for who he was. To which she said it was amazing, but asked: “And what about you? Do you accept her for who she is?”

She was going to culinary school in the East and ready to move West with him to embrace a farmer’s life, but what about her passion for food? To which he answered: “Well, she’s gonna cook for me and the family!”

Thinking this was never going to be enough, she then stopped and thought. Who was she to emit any opinion on what this woman wanted or not. She herself knew, that even if people saw her values and opinions as being strong and full of certainty, deep down, when she’d meet the right man who would respect her being, trust her character, and would help her overcome her fear of abandonment, she would throw her certainties to the side to focus on her couple. She asked him if she could share her selfish vision for their couple, according to what he had shared with her. He thought this request to be funny and wanted to hear more.

And here it went:

“There is this farm close to Napa, a farm with a lot of potential. A solitary man, who dreams to find his equal. One day he travels, and finds his bride to be. She leaves her family for him, goes West and starts a family. As the family grows, so does the farm, which becomes a vineyard, and the bride never looses her passion for food, to the point of creating a restaurant and an amazing lodge, where you go to taste succulent food and wine created by this loving couple.”

His eyes open wide, he exclaims: “I never thought she could be doing that! In my eyes, she had to give up all those silly dreams so she could focus on helping me take care of the farm! Wow! I actually don’t know what she wants to do. I don’t know why she wants to finish school. I don’t know what her dreams are, and I never thought they were important to be honest. I thought we needed to not focus on that at all, so she didn’t feel too bad about coming West with me.”

So the girl from the plane just told him, that this was her story for them, how she viewed it with what he had shared, but that they could create millions of other stories together, where both of them could be equal partners and didn’t have to give up on anything about what they wanted to bring to this world to be together. And suddenly he uttered: “But why are you still single if you want a family so bad? You sound like such a caring person!”

“I don’t know”, she murmured.

Hearing those words felt like a knife going through her heart. She heard them so many times before and to her they were an acknowledgement of her flaws, her inadequacies, her fear of commitment, fear of abandonment. She really just wanted a simple life. She wanted to write, to create things that would touch people, make them ponder about various topics, challenge them, make them dream, and feel better about who they were. She wanted a family life, where two people were part of a nucleus together, that nothing could shatter. She believed in eternal love, even if the current society where she lived did not. She was a strong and open minded woman, too independent for some standards, but in her heart she felt she was somewhat old fashioned. She didn’t feel any different from any other being on this earth, her problem was in herself and not in her environment.

He asked her if she was scared of men, if she hated them all.

But men were not her issue in any way. Her fears lay within herself and stemmed from her childhood, like so many people before her. She just needed to bypass them, which she didn’t seem to be able to do. She told him that her time hadn’t come yet, that she wanted to be with the men who didn’t want to be with her and didn’t want the men who did. She had hope though she said. She felt that she was slowly moving into a new vortex, and proof was in the last man she encountered, who slowly seemed to change her and make her a better being. “And you think you are changing him, right?” He asked. “Not really.” She answered. “I’m not really looking to change him. I just want to be there for him, because he’s there for me.” “You know, change needs to come from inside of you. You can’t really force anyone to want something they don’t want.” He said. But she already knew all of that, and at that moment, she felt he might be talking about him and his process. And so he added: “I’m going to share something with you, because I’m never going to see you anymore. I’m 24, I was married once. I have two small children with my first wife whom I don’t see anymore, because you know what? I messed up. I was a different person then, and I realize what is important in life now. I used to be a drug dealer, was arrested, and went to prison for one year. There, I saw old men, who kept going in and out of prison and it just hit me. I don’t want that life. I have too much potential, and that is what made me turn my life around.” At the sound of these words, her mouth dropped. She was sitting next to a criminal, in a plane, alone, and she started to panic inside. As his words continued to come out of his mouth, her feeling of anxiety and judgment increased. She decided to go to the bathroom, and the only thing she was thinking about while there was her pocketbook, which stayed under her seat.

When she came back, she did check her pocketbook, and it was untouched. She then realized how close minded she was. What would this man have done inside a plane? Steal her pocketbook? Run out of the plane? Where was her compassion she was so proud of thinking she was full of? Will she let her fear of what this man had done erase the rich conversation they had prior to him revealing his ‘secret’? Will this revelation completely close the door of their talk until the end of the flight? What was she scared of? He sold illegal drugs, she never consumed any. He went to prison, she was never arrested. Would she prefer to completely shut down, or take this opportunity to learn from this man, who was at the opposite of the life she has lived? She decided to calm her fears and shared with him, what she felt about what he had revealed to her. First she thanked him for talking about such a delicate subject and for revealing himself to her. Then, she shared her negative judgment, her sudden fear of him, and what she thought about him breaking the law. He thanked her for being so honest and was completely surprised about everything she told him. In a sense, this was refreshing and liberating for both of them, and until the end of the flight, she freely asked questions about his past life, his prison experience, his life transformation since he came out, and the young people with past lives similar to his he was guiding for the past few years of his existence.

And with openness, tolerance, compassion and curiosity, these two individuals changed each other’s lives for the better in 5 hours time.

Perceptions

You surround yourself with the people you need to validate your own perceptions of this world. Sometimes, your perceptions are actually detrimental to the person you would like to be in this world, but because of habit, upbringing, or what the outer layer of your thoughts and belief system defines as such perceptions, your actions bring you results opposite to who you had chosen to be. Sometimes, you think you are executing an action your brain associated with the perception of how the person you chose to be should act, but in fact, that said action brings you unwanted results, that the outer layer of your brain is shocked to witness, once consequences have to be lived.
So If you want to change, start by changing your statements about yourself, change your view of the world, change your environment, change the people surrounding you, or maybe even change your physical location. Expand your knowledge and read about who you want to become. Listen to your thoughts, acknowledge the links your brain made between such thoughts, actions and feelings.
If your goal is to be happy, and whatever makes you happy is different than what you are living now, run towards whatever moment, person, place makes you feel that urge of happiness. Don’t look back, if you don’t have distorted thoughts, the feelings you associate with happiness will be your driver.

There is no direct road to get to where you would like to go or become who you would like to become. If you start by your thought, and the consequence of your thought is opposite to where/who you would like to go/be, then change that first flicker of thought to a different one and focus on it over and over, until you absorbe it into your consciousness, act on it, and feel the consequences. If you start by your feeling, focus on the feeling you are trying to emulate, listen to it, observe your body and the physical reaction you associated with that feeling, focus on it over and over again, and execute all the actions, which breed this feeling in you.

I have met my share of people who don’t know what they want from life, people confused about who they are, people who think they are a certain type of individual in this world, but whose actions are interpreted as opposite of who they say they are. The most interesting people I have found to be, are people with a vision. How sublime, how attractive, how inspiring these people are. On this day in my life, I wish to only meet people with a vision, universe, please, fulfill my wish.

 

Le ‘Sex Faible’

I’m tired of meeting men who try to put me down, because they don’t feel good about themselves. If you don’t feel strong enough next to me, if I shatter your confidence, try to deal with your own shortcomings, don’t belittle me so I can be at your ‘level’. You don’t define who I am, I do. If you feel small, not smart enough, or ashamed of being vulnerable in front of me for fear of not being man enough, then let me be and seek a woman who will make you feel like the Man you are.

I am not improving myself for you, I am not treating my personality derailments for you, I am not furthering my understanding of this world to be better than you. YOU, you do not enter into consideration when I live my life, I live my life for me and the only ‘competition’, which interests and suits me is with myself.

I am not interested in conflict, for I am not interested in even an once of negativity in my life. I’m not interested in being a pawn in your own development if your technic of improvement includes bringing me lower than what you perceive yourself to be, so you can feel better about yourself and feel that you are growing or learning. I believe that my life could be lived in complete unity with a man strong enough to be who he chooses to be next to me, a man who is interested in improving his life continuously and have me as his partner as I improve mine with his support and candor.

Conflict seeks the destruction of a person’s expression and I believe it is possible to live life with change, which doesn’t include conflict at its center.

If you need to belittle me, it is because you think small of yourself and you obviously don’t understand who I have chosen to be in this world, as I don’t think a being is ‘better’ than another. I do believe that improvement comes at different speeds, in different areas of your life, and expresses itself in different forms.

I am support, I am strength, I am happiness, I am openness, I am vulnerability, I am acceptance, I am intelligence, I am passion, I am inspiration, I am independence, I am confidence, I am honesty, I am loyalty, I am giving, I am selfless,  I am friendliness, I am fun, I am responsible, I am authentic, I am valuable, I am bonded, I am affection, I am reliable, I am empathetic, I am apologetic, I am communication, I am love and I need to be loved, I am all of that and I seek the same in you…

Secrets

We all have so many secrets. So many secrets we don’t share.

We think they define who we are. That if they knew they’d no longer care.

For them to love us, they shouldn’t know, they shouldn’t find out what’s inside.

For all these secrets we hide. We think will make our demise.

But really what we’re doing is presenting someone we’re not.

And the day they’ll find out, they’ll think we’re cheating, even if we’re not.

So why not trust why not open, be vulnerable be yourself.

For the only ones who matter are the ones who know your Self.

They accept your entire You, accept you for who you are.

The good, the bad and everything in between.

Know all or not, they’ll not be far.

This Little Boy Who Was Living His Life Through His Friends

There was once a little boy who was living his life through the eyes of his friends. He loved them so much, and respected their opinion so much, that he thought they knew better than him what was good for him. But see, what he didn’t realize then, is that they were all different individuals and that he would be oh so wrong to live his life according to them.
One day, this little boy encountered this fabulous lady. She was beautiful, elegant, and happy. She was smart, independent and driven. She made him feel like a man, inspired him, and was always there for him no matter what. The more he got to know her, the more he saw her as perfection, as a Queen, a lady you want to spend the rest of your life with. This little boy really wanted to love her, but he was scared to a level he couldn’t control. Because see, this little boy had opened his heart too many times before, and too many times before he got hurt and made a joke of by young ladies who didn’t care enough about him. So when this little boy met this amazing woman, he didn’t know what to do, for she was too good to be true. She kept telling him she loved him, she kept telling him she cared, that she understood his pain so well, she was once herself there. She was also scared if loving him, she scared he would leave, but she didn’t want to listen to her fears, because inside of her she knew, that this little boy was was going to blossom to be amazing, and she wanted to be by his side.
The fear grew in this little boy’s heart. The fear didn’t let him decide, to become the prince for this lady, to take this lady by his side.
So he seek the advice of his best friends, since they got to one day meet her and what they said sealed his fate, shocked him at first, but settled in, and made him leave this young lady. The friends thought she was too much for him, that she will never ever stay with him. A lady like that, they said, wants a more mature man who can offer her the world. They thought he was too young, they thought he was not accomplished, that he would fall hard for her, and she would never reciprocate.
His feelings were so strong for her, so immensely uncontrollable. He saw her as his Princess, he saw her as his partner, he felt the deepest connection so fast that he, himself couldn’t believe it would last.
So with the advice of his friends and his own hesitations, he decided to leave the young lady and when he told her, she already knew. She tried to reassure him the best she knew how, she tried to make him see the connection they had and the love that was growing. But inside of her she knew that she was not strong enough to overcome his friends and this little boy’s fears and hesitations.
She cried so hard, she hurt so deep that she locked herself away from the world for months.
Eventually she healed and was ready to live again. She regretted this little boy’s story, she wished she could have broke down his walls, but she decided to move on for good, and what came next was unbelievable. Her future was bright, her future was grand and she found the perfect partner to be by her side. This man was young, much younger than her for the eyes of the world, and he was very smart too. He was there for her, she was there for him and together they conquered the world with the deepest love there was.
This little boy for his part never forgot this young lady. As he grew older so did his regrets and when he witnessed this young lady’s life his love for her reached incommensurable heights. His feelings for her never left him and became unmanageable at times. Every woman he met he compared them to her. All his life he was looking for what he felt for her over and over in the body and heart of others. But no other woman made him feel so much like a man, as this young lady once did. He was never as proud of them, or as proud of him when with them, and never lived this intensity in love he once felt with her. He eventually settled for a beautiful young lady, whom he loved very much, but never as much as the young lady he once knew. The day of his death, on his bed, he had one last thought for her and he realized, how much his heart ached all his life with the longing for this young lady he once knew. The love of his life was one and only. It had always been her and nobody ever removed from his heart the feelings he still had for her. And with his last breath, he realized that he should have tried to find her again a long time ago, that he should have followed his heart in the first place and never listen to his friends or societal standards. With his last breath, he thought of her, with his last breath he felt her, with his last breath he loved her.
So don’t live your life with regrets my friends, just live your life and trust yourself. For all your fears and all your friends don’t represent what your heart knows. The world teaches you to make decisions with your head, but if you stay honest with yourself you will know. All your life is driven by your heart, small or big, all the decisions you make, that you find once ‘crazy’ are the decisions that make you move forward to realms you wouldn’t even know to consider as yours. You can make your life grand, you can make your life happy, if you only trust yourself in this world, trust you heart and just live.

The Last Goodbye

There was once this young lady who decided to let go of unrequited love. So she wrote and wrote again, couldn’t decide how to say goodbye. She wrote an angry letter, which didn’t fit quite right, because her heart was hurt, was sad, and angry at the world, not really at the subject of her affection, because him, she only had love for. Her anger was at the world, because she was not able to break his walls, was not able to make him love her enough, so really, she was angry at the situation, at the time that passed, and at love itself for not being strong enough to unite them.
She then wrote a very sad letter. A letter she wrote crying and crying again, a letter of despair, which sounded more like a fall to the abyss letter, and had nothing to do with the object of her affection, or the situation they were living, but was really a letter about her past, where she brought to the surface all the wrongs she had suffered from, blaming the entire world for them, and feeling like she was the worst person in the world, not deserving to be loved.
After writing these two letters she realized she needed to ponder a bit and fill her heart with love again. The situation with the object of her affection is what is, she cannot change what people do or not do in their life, or with their feelings. The only thing she could focus on is her, and Her is defined by love, support, confidence and happiness. She had always been those things and she will always be them, this unrequited love story will never change who she is at the core.
So she focused and focused again, focused and focused more. She cleansed her heart from anger, cleansed her heart from despair, cleansed her heart from pain, cleansed her heart from resentment.
What happened after was precious and she treated her feeling delicately. Her love for her object of affection came back so intensely, so magically, it was as if it had never left her, but now her love was pure, it didn’t ask for anything in return. It was just there, wanting to be there for him, no matter what happened, she would be his support, his friend, his confidant. And if he didn’t see it that way, she was ok with it too, for she lived in her own magic world and in her world, she loved the people she allowed in her life no matter what, because they came to her for a reason: to make her a better person. See, she always knew she was a good person at heart, and if she loved someone at some point in her life, that person could only be a good person too, so why would she have to hate them, why would she have to banish them? She just couldn’t. She chose to still love them.
Do you want to read the last letter she wrote? Strangely, she wrote it very quickly. It was a shorter letter than the other two she wrote, because she didn’t think at all when writing it. The words slid directly from her mind to her fingers, so delicately, so easily.
Reading the final words to this unrequited love story is not essential, for they don’t define this love and they are not really meaningful. What is important to know is that this young lady is now happy again and at peace with this unrequited love story.
So remember my friends, don’t look into someone else’s actions for your own answers. Don’t blame other people for things you can’t obtain, because life is a beautiful journey, and everything you experience living it is here to teach you a lesson or to get you ready for the next experience coming. So take a moment to breathe in what you are living. Look at everything you are experiencing with loving eyes, for if you love yourself enough, you will love anything that comes to you, and you will grow and grow again, become each day a better person, and at the end of your journey, you will have changed this world, you will have touched people deeply, and they will do the same to the ones they love.

The last letter:
You will always be a part of me, for never I will let go of the feeling I had when I was with you. I now know that in this realm we cannot be, but in my dreams we are alive and my spirit will always be tangled with your heart and soul. You made me feel as alive as I could ever be, I don’t know why, I don’t know how, but your soul is pure and it touched me.
Now I wish you to feel this intensity with someone you choose to care for, I wish you to trust, to learn how to recognize the people who will be good for you, and let yourself go to love. Life is a beautiful journey, and I wish yours to be immensely rewarding, for your body, your heart, and your soul.
And even if I am physically saying goodbye to you right now, just know that I will always be with you, I will never let you go. I make a promise to the world today, to be there for you to eternity. I make a promise to the world today, to remain in your life forever, to cherish the moments we had, and even more the ones which will come. Not being your lover destroys a part of my soul, but being your friend is the most beautiful reward life can give me. I wish for us to remain one, as friends not lovers, but still be as one. I wish for us to learn to understand, support, listen, help, read, and love each other. I wish our friendship to grow forever and for us to never let go of each other. My friend, now I can freely say… I loved you then, I love you now, and I will always love you.

A Little Summer Rain

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When the summer rain falls, no one expects it and everyone is soaking wet and beautiful. Drops drip onto the floor, hair is heavy and shiny, clothes become startlingly revealing and every one is beautiful.

Don’t you just love this summer rain, refreshing and cheery, making you want to jump into the ocean and swim to the horizon.

Never stop this summer rain until its last drop falls on your plump lips, while your body is running as fast as it can, with a large smile on its face, to take refuge under the elegant awning of a 5 star restaurant, with its patrons looking out the window at this frenetic dance the pedestrians are performing in order to dodge each rain drop.