By R. L. Kopelli (3/29/08)
Dear Chocolate Bean,
I wonder as you lie there fighting for your breaths with so little skin separating your bones from the sometimes harsh outside world…I wonder…do you know how many people love you completely before even laying eyes on you. You, my sweet Chocolate Bean, you are a lucky one.
Do you know that your Mommy quietly cries for you because she misses you so much not being able to take you home and hold you in her arms and because she worries – as we all do but none want to admit how much. Chocolate Bean, you are so lucky to have a mommy who loves you like that.
Do you know how strong your Daddy is for you and for your Mommy and Monkey? As your Daddy’s mommy I see this. But I also see just about ¼ inch under that strength of the Warrior is that soul of the Poet that you will soon see for yourself. Just between you and me (and you will soon find that we will have many secrets just for you, me and Monkey…but don’t tell anyone) your Daddy is one of those “soft on the inside” kinda guys. That’s why he has to fluff up his feathers every once in a while to try to keep the secret that we already know. Chocolate Bean, do you know how lucky you are to have such a Warrior that you can so easily wrap around your little finger?
Do you know how proud I am to watch your Mommy and Daddy take care of each other and be sweet to each other through this time of the early entry of the one and only, beautiful Chocolate Bean?
Do you know that you have the perfect big sister waiting at home for you? Nini’s Chocolate Monkey is already so sweet with you. She’s still a little afraid to touch you but we can understand that. You are so small and the tubes that are running from the machines into your body look scary to a two-year old. (Actually, they look scary to me, too.)
Do you know how lucky you are that your Grammy came from the far away land of Reno to stay with Monkey so Mommy and Daddy could be with you?
Oh, my little Chocolate Bean, there are so many others who haven’t even met you yet and already love you so much. And – get this – you have about a bazillion aunts and uncles that have been waiting for you since they heard about your anticipated arrival months and months ago.
And, Chocolate Bean, you are going to absolutely LOVE this next part…You are going to have about a hundred-bazillion cousins to love and to play with and to grow up with and to be a family with and to count on and to have crazy-good Christmases with…Vanilla, Strawberry, Lee Boy, Finnigan……………………………..
And then there’s me – your Nini. Do you know how lucky I am? Do you know how lucky I am to have your Daddy as my son? Your Daddy is a man of integrity and a truth-seeker. He is a good man, he is a good husband to your Mommy, he is a loving and firm Daddy to your sister, and he stands over your incubator and just stares at you and admires your strength, your fight, your fragility.
Do you know how lucky I am to have your Mommy as my daughter-in-law? Your Aunt Joy and I aren’t always easy on the new women that come into our family that we guard with Fierce Love. But, your Mommy – she’s part of us. She’s one of us. She’s a keeper. She – like you – is beautiful on the inside and the outside.
Do you know how lucky I am to have your sister, Chocolate Monkey, as my granddaughter? I melt when I see those big brown eyes framed with your daddy’s eyelashes look at me through the miniature face of your Mommy. When she yells out, “I love you, Nini!”…well, the world just stops then and there…and everything is perfect.
Do you know how lucky I am to have you, My Littlest Chocolate Bean? You are a miracle. You are my baby’s baby. Soon, I will hold you for the first time. In that moment, you will feel how lucky I am because the feeling is so strong, it is beyond the world of words. I love you. I will always love you. You will always be perfect to me. You can always find a safe haven in my arms. You can always look into my eyes and see how beautiful you are inside and out. You can always hold my hand and know what a cherished treasure you are. I LOVE YOU.
What have I learned from my Littlest Chocolate Bean…really it’s more like - what I’ve been reminded of…
I have been reminded that I am the luckiest woman alive.
By R. L. Kopelli (3/29/08)
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
What I Learned From Love
After a wonderful week of family vacation, Marisa, Liam, Finn and I returned home to a nasty stomach bug that kept me running for the porcelain pony every 10 to 20 minutes. Good times!During this thorough "cleanse", I found that memories long forgotten had found their way back to the conscious level. Mostly fond memories of playing outside at the Norager house, or sleepovers at Nater's house where we stayed up all night (ie until about 10:30pm) playing "Chip and Dale's Rescue Rangers" video game for the SNES. But the one memory that came back to me that gave me the biggest smile was this one:
It was a very early August morning (around 6am) and I was 11 years old. Mom came in to my room and woke me out of a dead sleep. "Wake up, Jesse." She said.
"What?" I moaned, not very happy to be awake at that hour. Either Mom had thought that it was time to go back to the short lived "everybody to bed at 7pm and everybody wakes up @ 5am" plan, or there was something else going on.
"Did you wet the bed?" She asked. You may think this to be an odd question to be asking an 11 year old boy, but if you think it odd, then you obviously did not grow up in the Butterworth household.
"Uhhhhhh..." I looked down to examine the evidence.
"Quick, get up and get dressed." She urged.
"Why?" I said.
"Just get dressed really quick."
"Ok". I hopped up and got dressed. After I was clothed a pee-pee free, Mom took me to the front door where there were 2 youth pastors from the church and 6 other 11 year old boys from the church.
"What's going on?" I asked.
"Quick, grab him!" They yelled. And they all pounced on me and pretended to kidnap me and throw me in the back of the van to take me to the church. Unbeknownst to me, this was my "initiation" into the 6th graders class at Calvary Bible Church.
While sitting over donuts and orange juice at the initiation breakfast, the other boys regaled the stories of how the youth pastors and the other boys came in to the room and picked them up out of bed, duct taped them up and "kidnapped" them.
"Why didn't my mom let them take me out of my bed, too?" I wondered to myself. I kind of felt like I got robbed of having a "cool" experience like those kids did.
And then it occurred to me.
Sometimes love looks a mom protecting her late-bed-wetting-son from mockery.
Thanks Mom!
I love you too!
Monday, February 11, 2008
What I learned from…Woody Allen’s cynical sense of humor
What I learned from…
Woody Allen’s cynical sense of humor
The following are experts were taken from the movie “Annie Hall.”
"There's an old joke - um... two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of 'em says, "Boy, the food at this place is really terrible." The other one says, "Yeah, I know; and such small portions." Well, that's essentially how I feel about life - full of loneliness, and misery, and suffering, and unhappiness, and it's all over much too quickly."
Of course this is a very pessimistic view on life, but I think there are a couple different things to take from this. One, is that it is easy to always concentrate on the negative; to look for the bad or damaging qualities in a person or situation and pick it apart. And though, for someone like me, that is just an unavoidable part of life. You have to be able to get past those things and take the good with the bad. Of course, it’s also very important to be able to recognize the good, bad and indifferent, realize what people or things in your life mean to you and treat it (or them) accordingly.
Second, this quote also makes me realize that old habits die slowly. Whether it’s a regular vacation at a resort you don’t like or a self-loathing habit that seems impossible to break, I think part of being a human is establishing habits. And whether they are good, bad, healthy or lethal, once a habit or comfort zone is created breaking out of it can prove to be very difficult.
"The... the other important joke, for me, is one that's usually attributed to Groucho Marx; but, I think it appears originally in Freud's "Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious," and it goes like this - I'm paraphrasing - um, "I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member." That's the key joke of my adult life, in terms of my relationships with women."
This joke to me goes beyond relationships and has to do with an issue that without coming to terms with will make living very hard. I have gone up and down in my weight over the years, have changed my look many times and even had many different kinds of friends. And though this hasn’t always been true, I can say that I am comfortable in the skin I am in. And without being happy and satisfied with the person that you are, physically, mentally and emotionally it becomes almost impossible to have a healthy life. Of course, I’m not trying to knock self-improvement. I think that’s great, but that’s a different idea. Some people are more driven to better themselves, which is doesn’t really matter for this purpose other than you should know which one you are and accept that person.
"After that it got pretty late, and we both had to go, but it was great seeing Annie again. I... I realized what a terrific person she was, and... and how much fun it was just knowing her; and I... I, I thought of that old joke, y'know, the, this... this guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, "Doc, uh, my brother's crazy; he thinks he's a chicken." And, uh, the doctor says, "Well, why don't you turn him in?" The guy says, "I would, but I need the eggs." Well, I guess that's pretty much now how I feel about relationships; y'know, they're totally irrational, and crazy, and absurd, and... but, uh, I guess we keep goin' through it because, uh, most of us... need the eggs."
This is a quote I keep referring back to many times over the last 8 years or so. I think anyone who has been in a romantic relationship can make sense of this at one level or another. There is no denying that throughout the course of a relationship, no matter how serious or dysfunctional there is always that x-factor that comes into play that makes you start to wonder. Usually, whether or not I could do without it. Sometimes it’s conversation, sometimes it’s sex, sometimes it’s wondering what your offspring might look like. But most of the time I think it’s companionship. And that’s a big egg to live without. However, it also can justify putting up with a lot of crap may not outweigh the fear of being alone. I think for the most part the theory that one in every seven people is compatible with another is true. And that’s where the companionship comes into play, because within that thinking people don’t have to be overly selective to find someone they can not only tolerate, but get along with. But then again, maybe the eggs that are referred to in the joke come from that intangible that brings that one to the surface. In other words, finding true love.
This quote has sort of meant different things to me over the years, but at this point I think that is where I’m landing. Opening an optimistic eye to the idea that there is an innate feeling we have as humans to seek out love. And when you find it, it’s really something.
Woody Allen’s cynical sense of humor
The following are experts were taken from the movie “Annie Hall.”
"There's an old joke - um... two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of 'em says, "Boy, the food at this place is really terrible." The other one says, "Yeah, I know; and such small portions." Well, that's essentially how I feel about life - full of loneliness, and misery, and suffering, and unhappiness, and it's all over much too quickly."
Of course this is a very pessimistic view on life, but I think there are a couple different things to take from this. One, is that it is easy to always concentrate on the negative; to look for the bad or damaging qualities in a person or situation and pick it apart. And though, for someone like me, that is just an unavoidable part of life. You have to be able to get past those things and take the good with the bad. Of course, it’s also very important to be able to recognize the good, bad and indifferent, realize what people or things in your life mean to you and treat it (or them) accordingly.
Second, this quote also makes me realize that old habits die slowly. Whether it’s a regular vacation at a resort you don’t like or a self-loathing habit that seems impossible to break, I think part of being a human is establishing habits. And whether they are good, bad, healthy or lethal, once a habit or comfort zone is created breaking out of it can prove to be very difficult.
"The... the other important joke, for me, is one that's usually attributed to Groucho Marx; but, I think it appears originally in Freud's "Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious," and it goes like this - I'm paraphrasing - um, "I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member." That's the key joke of my adult life, in terms of my relationships with women."
This joke to me goes beyond relationships and has to do with an issue that without coming to terms with will make living very hard. I have gone up and down in my weight over the years, have changed my look many times and even had many different kinds of friends. And though this hasn’t always been true, I can say that I am comfortable in the skin I am in. And without being happy and satisfied with the person that you are, physically, mentally and emotionally it becomes almost impossible to have a healthy life. Of course, I’m not trying to knock self-improvement. I think that’s great, but that’s a different idea. Some people are more driven to better themselves, which is doesn’t really matter for this purpose other than you should know which one you are and accept that person.
"After that it got pretty late, and we both had to go, but it was great seeing Annie again. I... I realized what a terrific person she was, and... and how much fun it was just knowing her; and I... I, I thought of that old joke, y'know, the, this... this guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, "Doc, uh, my brother's crazy; he thinks he's a chicken." And, uh, the doctor says, "Well, why don't you turn him in?" The guy says, "I would, but I need the eggs." Well, I guess that's pretty much now how I feel about relationships; y'know, they're totally irrational, and crazy, and absurd, and... but, uh, I guess we keep goin' through it because, uh, most of us... need the eggs."
This is a quote I keep referring back to many times over the last 8 years or so. I think anyone who has been in a romantic relationship can make sense of this at one level or another. There is no denying that throughout the course of a relationship, no matter how serious or dysfunctional there is always that x-factor that comes into play that makes you start to wonder. Usually, whether or not I could do without it. Sometimes it’s conversation, sometimes it’s sex, sometimes it’s wondering what your offspring might look like. But most of the time I think it’s companionship. And that’s a big egg to live without. However, it also can justify putting up with a lot of crap may not outweigh the fear of being alone. I think for the most part the theory that one in every seven people is compatible with another is true. And that’s where the companionship comes into play, because within that thinking people don’t have to be overly selective to find someone they can not only tolerate, but get along with. But then again, maybe the eggs that are referred to in the joke come from that intangible that brings that one to the surface. In other words, finding true love.
This quote has sort of meant different things to me over the years, but at this point I think that is where I’m landing. Opening an optimistic eye to the idea that there is an innate feeling we have as humans to seek out love. And when you find it, it’s really something.
Saturday, February 9, 2008
What I Learned From...the movie, Little Miss Sunshine
by R. L. Kopelli
The biggest thing I learned from the movie, Little Miss Sunshine, comes down to one scene – the scene where the teenage son finds out he is color-blind and consequently realizes the demise of his dream of being a pilot…his BIG dream…the dream that you just can’t think of a reason to continue existing without. The one that breaks your heart, breaks your spirit, breaks your will…that dream. The memory of that young man’s reaction still makes me ache.
That’s how we should react when our hopes and dreams are dashed. I couldn’t stop crying while I sat watching that scene in the theater. It touched a place in me that I keep carefully and systematically hidden, buried, and pretend not to have.
I wish I were that brave. Brave enough to openly wail when my heart has been broken because I realize a dream that I had yearned for has been denied. Instead, when I am in the most pain is when I am the quietest - my calm, icy, stoic exterior completely masking the silent scream.
I wish I were that brave.
The biggest thing I learned from the movie, Little Miss Sunshine, comes down to one scene – the scene where the teenage son finds out he is color-blind and consequently realizes the demise of his dream of being a pilot…his BIG dream…the dream that you just can’t think of a reason to continue existing without. The one that breaks your heart, breaks your spirit, breaks your will…that dream. The memory of that young man’s reaction still makes me ache.
That’s how we should react when our hopes and dreams are dashed. I couldn’t stop crying while I sat watching that scene in the theater. It touched a place in me that I keep carefully and systematically hidden, buried, and pretend not to have.
I wish I were that brave. Brave enough to openly wail when my heart has been broken because I realize a dream that I had yearned for has been denied. Instead, when I am in the most pain is when I am the quietest - my calm, icy, stoic exterior completely masking the silent scream.
I wish I were that brave.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Lessons from Finn (our 7 month old)...
By Marisa and Jesse
J - Although only seven months old, he will have it how he wants it and when he wants it. End of story.
M - It's ok to cry for no good reason.
M - Teething sucks...the end.
M - Finn has reminded me that he needs my boobs to live. Oh wait - that's Jesse.
J - Finn has taught me that even though he can only reach around my head, a hug still feels really good.
M - Finn has shown me that yelling is often very effective.
J - Finn has shown me that sometimes staring at your hands can bring hours of endless pleasure.
M - Finn has shown me that for a 7 month old that has just found his peeny dong, those things are sure pliable.
J - Finn has shown me that you can build an entire language around the syllable "ba."
M - Finn has shown me that you are born loving music.
J - Finn has shown me that having and loving a big brother is a really good thing.
M - Finn has taught me that everything is better when you put it in your mouth.
M - Finn has taught me that it can be fun to talk and laugh with yourself in the middle of the night.
M - Finn has shown me that you should always kiss with an open mouth, a lot of tongue and your eyes wide open.
M - Finn has shown me that it's ok not to smile at everyone.
What We've Learned from Liam...
By Marisa and Jesse
M - I have learned that my kisses make everything better.
J - I have learned that my son doesn't care how much money I make or what kind of car I drive or what kind of phone I talk on.
M - I have learned that it takes great skill to get your pee into the toilet.
M - Liam has taught me that I need to try to poop everytime I go to the bathroom.
M - Liam has reminded me that Scooby Doo is a really great show (by force).
J - Liam has reminded me that sometimes it's just good to dance.
J - Liam has taught me that a 3 year old's gas is just as nasty as a grown man's.
M - Liam has shown me how to be silly again.
M - Liam thinks my vinivan is cool.
J - Liam has taught me that a couple of couch cushions, a pillow, a blanket and a little imagination make a sweet fort.
M - Liam has reminded me how cool bugs look up close.
M - I have learned that I am really pretty.
J - Liam showed me that one of the greatest gifts in life is when your 3 year old tells you he loves you without any prompting.
M - It is always exciting when I get home.
J - Liam has taught me that wanting to marry your cousin is a very normal and logical idea. (Maybe Tuffy had the right idea all along)...
M - Liam has taught me that sometimes all you need is a bowl of goldfish and a glass of milk to feel better.
J - Liam has taught me that it is good to have a bedtime ritual.
M - Liam has shown me that it makes people feel really good when you scream their name and make a mad dash to them for a hug.
What I Learned From...Being Sick
1. After 2 days lying on the couch with my 2 dogs, I learned that my dogs
need a bath…and so do I.
2. The world goes on quite nicely without me.
3. I have people who love me and that makes me want to keep going for as
long as I can.
4. Once I let go of the myriad of details of the outside world, the voices
in my head slowed down…that was nice.
5. Sometimes, Sprite and crackers are the only things that I can face.
6. Finding a balance between being the tortoise and the hare is a healthy thing.
7. I like the TV show, Monk.
8. I push myself way too hard.
9. It’s crazy how fast your home gets messy from just lying on the couch!
10. I should start being nicer to myself.
need a bath…and so do I.
2. The world goes on quite nicely without me.
3. I have people who love me and that makes me want to keep going for as
long as I can.
4. Once I let go of the myriad of details of the outside world, the voices
in my head slowed down…that was nice.
5. Sometimes, Sprite and crackers are the only things that I can face.
6. Finding a balance between being the tortoise and the hare is a healthy thing.
7. I like the TV show, Monk.
8. I push myself way too hard.
9. It’s crazy how fast your home gets messy from just lying on the couch!
10. I should start being nicer to myself.
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