Passion

I am addicted to the love story between Napoleon Bonaparte and Josephine Beauharnais...and from this letter from Napoleon to Josephine - it's not hard to see why...his passion for her ran so deeply, she didn't return his love in the beginning, it didn't take long however for his passion to rub off on her and so one of the greatest love stories was born...

"I awake all filled with you. Your image and the intoxicating pleasures of last night, allow my senses no rest.

Sweet and matchless Josephine, how strangely you work upon my heart.

Are you angry with me? Are you unhappy? Are you upset?

My soul is broken with grief and my love for you forbids repose. But how can I rest any more, when I yield to the feeling that masters my inmost self, when I quaff from your lips and from your heart a scorching flame?

Yes! One night has taught me how far your portrait falls short of yourself!

You start at midday: in three hours I shall see you again.

Till then, a thousand kisses, mio dolce amor! but give me none back for they set my blood on fire."

Marriage

Dear N,

I know your marriage is coming up and I wanted to share with you something from my own marriage. Whilst I was young and most definately naive, my marriage meant something to me. It still does. The passage I would like to pass on meant a lot to me at the time. It made me think, and at my tender age I didn't quite understand what it meant. And so, I share it with you my dear friend - I hope there might be something in it for you:

Kahlil Gibran on Marriage
From Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet

Then Almitra spoke again and said, And what of Marriage, Master?
And he answered saying:
You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.
Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.

I wish you so much luck, love and happiness as you and S enter into this union of the minds. I know you will both be fantastic, I also know there will be a special place in your heart for A on that day and the respect S has for that is what tells me your marriage will work.

Love
BGL
xxx

An Open Letter To My Past

You’ve been with me a lot lately – my past. In my dreams, in my thoughts, keeping me awake at night wondering ‘why’, ‘how’, ‘if only’. Wondering if I could have, should have arrested what was to become the future when the first bloom of love began to sprout from the moist earth of our hearts.

Why are you still with me my past. Why do you haunt me. Why do you come to me in dreams – always angry, shouting at me, hurting me over and over. When will it end? Is it up to me to end it? You don’t even realize that my heart still aches. Our love – a great love – a love hard to forget and so it torments me. Will you ever be a part of my present, will we ever look into the future again with aspirations and dreams that are no longer full of sharp edges, angles that we can’t see around, boxes that we put memories in never to be opened again.

And you’re everywhere my past. I stumble across you, I don’t want to – but there you are. In a song on the radio, a show on tv, in a movie, a book, a look, a smile, a style – you’re there – you’re everywhere. You’re walking in front of me, you’re sitting in the same café, you’re looking at the same news story, you’re looking at the same sky, the same stars, the same moon.

I remember sitting in the bottom of the shower in a foreign country, naked, bruised, tears streaming from the wells of my eyes. You lay in bed unable to move to comfort me. Unable to tenderly kiss the body you had shattered and yet – still – I loved you – still – I made plans for a future with you – even though I knew from that moment on that we would never have a future together. Every kiss after that, every touch, everything was different after that. I couldn’t shake it, it was always in the back of my mind that you did that to our love and yet I knew I was a part of the cause. The guilt I felt you will never comprehend.

Do you remember when we first met? What an odd time that was, me fresh from my cage ready for anything exciting. You, still in the cage of your mind. We, two polar opposites yet drawn so magnetically together. If only I had known the torturous chamber that was you then. Would I have stepped off the cliff into your arms, would I have allowed myself to create a past that would ultimately rip my heart in two? I wonder - will you ever be free from your past, the one that keeps you bitter, angry, resentful – the one that keeps you always ready for the fight? I realize now – it’s not me you hate – but yourself. Don’t you see how wonderful you are? Don’t you see that you could have been anything you wanted … should have been anything and now all I see is the past. Sad, futile, desolate, miserable, trapped. Don’t you understand that if only you had allowed yourself to be loved, to be fully loved that you would have been set free to achieve every dream you could have imagined?

I remember as we lay in your bed as the rain fell from the sky, dripping from the Eucalyptus tree outside the window. We smoked cigarettes, caressed each other’s bodies, we talked of our past, our present, our future, we shared secrets, intimate moments, we explored the deepest parts of each others psyche. I felt that you were the answer to my question. The reason I was put on this earth. We connected – life meant something – we were one.

Isn’t it funny how love can go from the perfection of an 8 hour conversation to the days, weeks, months and years of not talking? And whilst it takes years to happen, I still can’t believe how quickly we seemed to arrive in this place. What is it? Limbo – until we do speak again. It will happen – one day. Perhaps then – none of the hurt will matter. Perhaps then, the barricades around your heart will come down. Perhaps then – you will live your life for love again.

And we did it to each other you know. We both did it. We both created the cold war. We were both a party to the pain of the past. We killed the love in each other. Slowly, gradually, we ruined what was so precious to us. By the time I walked away I was so disappointed, I couldn’t believe what we had become. Boring, complacent, ignorant, passionless. I still don’t quite understand why we are cruelest to the ones we love the most. What is it in human nature that drives the desire to hurt another – to hurt those closest to us.

In these years I have lived I have learnt that it’s not your past that matters, it’s not the future that you make plans for, the most important moment is now, this moment, this is the moment that you live in, this is the moment that matters.

Because at the end of the day – when we die, in that moment when death is knocking, so close, whispering in our ear that it is time, all we have is the moment. All we have then are the memories of how we lived our life. And what can we say – that we lived with humility, compassion, understanding, sympathy and empathy for our fellow man. Can we say that we achieved what we wanted in this life we were given. And what was it we wanted to achieve?

Or will it be the smile of our children that we remember as we take our last breaths – their first words, their first steps. The first time they really hugged you, the first time they smiled at you because they knew you somehow belonged to them. Will you remember the tears that came from pure joy at seeing your child look at you and seem to say purely with their eyes ‘I trust you completely’.

And so in this open letter I say goodbye to my past. You were a great love. But you weren’t the love, you weren’t my last love. You were simply a love in the time of my life, you took up years, but in the grand scheme of life – they weren’t so many years. I realize now – that you my past were the path that led to my great love. I wish you well my past, I wish you no harm. I forgive you, I love you.