Groovy kind of love

Carole writes Howie: 

When I'm feeling blue, all I have to do...

 

Thank you for that.

 

Howie writes Carole:  22 Jan 2003 00:05:14 -0500

 

Thanks.  I sort of regretted possibly creating the impression that tomorrow was some big confession or something.  You are so unusual in not asking questions and just waiting for me to bring up something.  But on the other hand, from this point on if there ever is something you are curious about or would like to ask, I'd like you to feel free to ask and I'll try to answer.

 

I feel like writing tonight.

 

One thing I would like you to be aware of is my religious background.  By birth I'm Jewish.  I have not practiced since I left home, and my family was never very religious.  I have no negative feelings about Judaism and have not "officially" ever abandoned it.  It just seemed to me that the whole thing was pretty well summed up in the Golden Rule and the rest was ritual.  Being Jewish is a little different from most religions in that it is to some extent not just a religion but also an ethnic background, like being Italian.  To my Jewish friends and my family, I'm Jewish, and occasionally get invited to a holiday meal.  My beliefs, as I think you have seen, run much more along spiritual lines, believing firmly in some life force in the Universe that is part of all living things, and a "soul" or "spirit" in each of us that is the portion of that life force that resides in us.  And I think that some form of reincarnation is very likely.

 

I would like to know your church because it is such an important part of your life and, for me, part of knowing and understanding you.  And even if I can never share some of the beliefs, I may well learn some things that I will benefit from.  And at a minimum, may simply find some peaceful minutes.  I went to Mary's church the day my old friend Dell died just to be able to be in a "house of God" as the right place for the feelings I had that day.

 

Switching topics, it tends to be human nature to find most desirable what we cannot have, and take for granted what we do have.  Aside from the awkwardness of saying or writing something that feels "mushy" to me, I think a part of me feels like if I share thoughts that show too much interest in you, I become part of the pack of admirers and less desirable.  Not saying this is the case - rather, it is another little insight I find as I look inside for reasons for my own behavior.

 

My favorite relative after my brother is my cousin Alan in Miami.  He is about 74, the guy who "talked" me into going to law school.  He is not just a brilliant trusts and estates lawyer, but someone who I admire for just having pure wisdom.  He was my mother's favorite younger cousin, and now I think he and I have the same relationship.  He had a long unhappy first marriage, then late in life married his current wife.  I don't think I know of a better marriage.

 

When I was in Miami in December I told him about you.  I hope you won't mind, but I showed him your poem, because I thought he was one of the few people who would appreciate it.  I have to confess and hope you'll understand that at the time, to me you were sort of new and interesting but had not really gotten past my barriers.  (And speaking of "bulldozing", where did you put them?)  Anyway, he became President of your fan club by the end of the poem.  I sent him a little update recently and he sent me the email below.  I thought it was wonderful, and wanted to share it with you when I got it but felt that "wince" that I get so I didn't.  Tonight I'm ignoring the wince.  Here is what he sent me:

 

When you are not with her, would you like to be? Would you like to wake up next to her in the morning and go to sleep with her at night? Do you often think about her when you are not with her? If you were able to change her, what changes (IF ANY) would you make?  Do you admire what she has done with her life up to this point? Do you think she is inte