Stone Mason and Life

During my vacation when I was young, a man told me, "Son why are you not happy? Do you know why I am happy. It is because I am a stone Mason and I have found out a way to see life. Life is like those enormous square blocks over there. Say its composition marble or granite. Well I have to polish the corners to make it round. To me a round block represents my happiness. Every morning I would take these shabby hands of mine and apply sandpapers to round the rough edges of those giant corners. I would try to polish this square block. In a year, at last I have trimmed the four corners of this square block with my hands. It is an accomplishment but my round block isn't so perfect. I would go out and shave the corners upon smaller corners until I am a little bit satisfied. Look in my palm, it is my marble. It is the enormous square block similar to the one I showed you. Now it is round but it is still not as perfect as I have wanted it to be. Each day I still polish it. You see, what we want is endless and will never be satisfied but what we do is magnificent. If I keep on working on this round stone, it would be polished down to nothing when I am done. I tell you, when my work is done I am not left with nothing, but a great accomplishment. You can only be a little satisfied with these tangible objects until you get bored of it. The real excitement is in its progression and to reflect. So what do you enjoy doing?"

Surely I do not enjoy polishing marbles. I looked at this old man and smile at him. Not that what he had told me had made me happy or had made any sense. I thought that it was just a passing of time for him. He was trying to be nice. I did not want a stone mason preaching to me about life. But I looked back. Life is squared, and happiness is just an ideal roundness. I would not ever have much discipline to go out everyday and trim a small hill like him. What he did was just crazy and I will never understand his quest, but what he did was absolutely ideal.

I wish I could be a stone mason of this sort. I am always surrounded by these challenges and rough edges of life. This weekend I was out with my partner and how I was upset this morning. I wonder if I was truly happy. If my partner has treated me in the way I like to be treated. I contemplated while we ate sushi. I wasn't really mad at my partner, but just stuck. I wasn't really there that day just lost in thoughts. I stare out into the blue. After returning and stumbling on the pair of sneakers that I bought for my partner.

It is really old, bent, dirty and sitting in front of the door. Of my partner's attire decked out with premium jeans, celebrity purses, limited edition tshirts and there it is, a pair of old sneakers that I got for my partner last year after a couple of months of dating. They sit there. I look at them with all the creases that they have gotten over the year. I have not even noticed them. My partner still wears it. It reminds me of my 5 grade tennis shoes going through mud, grass, and dry dirt. The shoes that sit in front of the door have been somewhat cleaned. I can not believe it. In a way it surprises me and makes me happy thinking about it. My partner never did get bored of the time we went out looking for skating sneakers. I got the same matching pair. Always wore them like the day when we first got them.

It is really magnificent to see the same reaction as the first day of wearing them. I picked them up and smile at them and put them down, stand there and look over to the couch and smiled at my partner. My happiness can never be satified because it is like a canteen bottle with holes in it. But these things just overflow me with joy. It is indeed that life is squared but it is how I look at it that makes it round.

Love 1 & Love 2

There are times when you are confronted and wondered if your partner really does love you. It may seem kind of obvious but other times you just don't know. I used to think that the meaning of love was uniform and the same among people. I was totally wrong. I find that my view on love might be different than what my partner sees. Love to my partner might be apparent in the things I do for my partner (acts of caring), and love to me is the small things my partner would do and say to me. After going out with my partner for a year I still cannot seem to comprehend what love really means to my partner. Love to my partner might be a trio between spoken words, actions, and surprises. Even the smallest variation in perception of the meaning of love may lead to a conflict. I tried asking my partner many times what does love mean. My partner cannot describe it. I don't blame my partner because love is more than any combination of words.

This is from Georgia_peach comment which catches my attention because it vividly echoes in my head:

"Every year my husband stops by the side of the road and pulls up a tiger lily by its roots.  Then he presents it to me, dirty bulb and all.  It's jsut a little thing, but the first time he did it we had been dating about a month and he remembered that I said my favorite flowers are tiger lilies because I like hte way they look in ditches. And no matter how hard a florist tries, their lilies will never be so beautiful as the one that grows in the mud.  Little things like that fill the gap for me."

We all view love differently. I like to know.

What is love to you?

Accusation, Argument, No Understanding...

Taken for granted.

Why I do not say "I love you" when we are arguing?