Write2Unpack

I’ve been married for 14 years. In 2002 my husband and I married in Maui on the beach, and this year we took our 2 youngest sons back to that beach.  It was every bit as beautiful and romantic as I remember. Later that night, as we sat on the lanai sipping wine, my husband looked over at me and said, “You should write about new love and old love. You know, how things are when you’re first in love and how it changes over the years.”

That’s a great idea, and so today’s blog post was born. New love is great and passionate, but old love is great and passionate too. So what’s the difference?

New love:  New love is intense, fiery, and physical. That spark of discovering each other (and each other’s bodies) lights up and fuels our nights.  In our younger years our bodies are smoother, sleeker, harder, and more shapely than they are in our 50’s and up. But that’s not to say that we can’t experience the passion and intensity of new love later in our years. Regardless of age we’re surprised by new lovers because so much about them is still unknown, everything is exciting and a new discovery.

New love can also mean “young love.” As a teenager we don’t have the obligations of being an adult and have more freedom to be focused on “what I want” instead of “what’s best for the family/my children/etc.” While exciting, this freedom can inhibit the softer nature of a deep, lasting bond. A bond that is formed with each tender touch, soft caress, and caring embrace offered without question and without strings.

Old love:  Old love is deep, intense, and opaque. The sheerness of being new to each other has weathered a few (or many) storms and has become a dense, complex love that is impenetrable to minor squalls. Old love has a roundness to it that new love does not. It has the strength to last because all our sharp pointy edges have been smoothed, and where we’ve broken our lover has held the glue to put us together again. The mysteries that were so exciting have been filled in and replaced with familiarity and (sometimes) contempt. And when things go wrong, they will go wrong, old love has enough devotion banked to cover when our lover (or we) fall short.

This week I was thinking how grateful I am to have a husband who knows how I like my coffee, that I like to sleep in, and holds my hand when we walk (anywhere) on the beach.

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My husband is retired and just recently we’ve discovered that he has a talent for drawing nudes. It’s something he enjoys, and yours truly is his favorite model – curves and all. We’ve decided that he’s going to start drawing nudes, and I’m going to write a short story around them.  They may sell, they may not, but I love this “something new” I can do with my old love to make us new and brighter again.

How about you? What excitement do you bring to your relationship? Are you complacent or do you try every day to pursue and delight your love? My wish for you this week is that you’re passionate about love – regardless of what stage you’re in. Love is an adventure.

My words are my thoughts, but my pictures are generally found on Pinterest (you can find anything there!). Feel free to follow me on Pinterest (Melissa Gale) or Facebook. I love feedback, and invite you to comment or e-mail me with your thoughts. Signing up to follow me is the best way to make sure you don’t miss a post!

Two-weeks ago as I was hot tubbing with my 11 year old son, he looked up at the full moon and said, “Mom! The moon is going to be half-full when we’re camping in Hawaii!” He’s a smart one, that kid of mine, and this week I write to you from Hawaii. My husband and I took our youngest children on vacation, and for the first 2 nights we didn’t have a room at our condo, so we decided to be adventurous and camp in West Maui.  That’s right – camping in Maui.

We packed a couple of 2 man tents in our luggage, along with some blankets and pillowcases that we stuffed with clothes to use as pillows, and planned to stay in a state park just before Hana. (Wai’anapanapa State Park). Now, when we made these plans we arranged to have a Ford Edge (moderately sized) as our rental car, but because the Universe had other plans for us, we ended up with a Ford Expedition (translation: a car the size of a small yacht) to drive on The Road to Hana. Having been on The Road to Hana a time or two, and remembering the one-lane road/bridges, I decided that would be an adventure of its own, and hey – if we got rained out all four of us could fit into the back and just sleep there.

We made it without incident (a little white knuckled, but without incident) to the State Park, where I planned to purchase a camping permit from the office or from the ranger, but apparently in West Maui you’re supposed to plan ahead and purchase your permits on-line at least 3 days in advance.  We tried to go on-line and purchase a permit right there, but there is no cell service or wi-fi to speak of, and just when we were about to give up and get back into the yacht and drive to a public parking lot to sleep, the lovely park ranger, Lani, came to our rescue.  Lani was kind and gracious, and so very understanding of a family of Haolis who failed to plan ahead and purchase their permits the required 3 days in advance, and allowed us to purchase the permit right then (after hours) and stay at the park for 2 nights. I am and will be forever grateful for her kindness and hospitality, and for the memories and lessons I learned while camping at the State Park.

Today’s blog post is about that adventure. Camping under the half-moon in Hana with my husband and two youngest sons, and the lessons presented. Lessons are everywhere when you pay attention.  If you follow my blog (which you should), you know I write about and try to pay attention, be present, and learn from the lessons that are offered.  The following are 10 things I learned while camping in West Maui.

1. Grass covered lava rock is not as soft as it looks.
2. Body heat is better than a blanket, and a blanket is better used as a cushion than for warmth.
3. There are wild chickens and roosters all over, and they are not afraid of the park cat.
4. Dogs in Hawaii still do the “Twilight Bark” even when there are no other dogs.
5. There are approximately 30 minutes between the end of the “Twilight Bark” of a Hawaiian dog and the start of the wild roosters crowing.

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6. When you can’t sleep because the ground is hard and the dog is barking you have to pee more.
7. Camping close to a bathroom is a plus when you have to pee a lot.
8. Peeing a lot is ok when you’re camping in Hawaii and the moon is half-full because there are a million stars and they all look closer and brighter.
9. Listening to waves crashing into cliffs in the middle of the night when everyone else is sleeping and you’re looking at the stars fills your whole being with the most amazing feelings of beauty and love.
10. When you’re camping with those you love it doesn’t matter how hard the ground is, how much the dog barks, or how early the roosters start crowing. It’s still a marvelous adventure.

We survived the road from Hana, and today I write to you from the lanai of our room. Yesterday, while waiting for our room to be ready, I met a couple of wonderful fellows from Vancouver, BC. Neighbors by fate (if you believe in such a thing) one of whom is a paramedic and here for vacation, and the other (a self-proclaimed “Maverick”) is here to spread the ashes of his late wife who recently passed away from ovarian cancer. Both men are sweet, kind, definitely charming, and since I don’t believe in coincidence I’m looking forward to finding out why the Universe has brought them to me (or me to them) and what adventures and lessons are offered in the coming week.

I love feedback so please feel free to leave me a comment, or find me on Facebook (Melissa Gale) and reach me there. If you’d prefer something less “social media-ish” you can send me an e-mail at: write2unpack@gmail.com. Oh, and sign up to follow me. It’s quick, easy, and you won’t miss a post!

This week I spotlight another writer friend of mine, Corneil Vacirca. Corneil, like me, is a romance writer, and with the new year she’s decided to make a major life change. I am so very proud of her and support her decision whole-heartedly. I asked if she’d be willing to guest-post on my blog and, being the amazing writer she is, she sent me the following.

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“Jump and the net will appear.”

A friend gave me those words as I contemplated making a major life change. Almost anyone looking from the outside in, could easily think I had lost my marbles. It made no sense to give up the predictability, comfort, security of what was to take a chance on something that might only could be.

But her words were a gift of profound impact.

When I’ve come to crossroads in life, I’ve studied all of the angles, turned the situation upside down, inside out. My approach would lead you to believe that an approach with through analyzation would mean a successful outcome, right? Funny how life doesn’t work that way.

I’ve lived by the idea that God would open and close the right doors, all I had to do was pay attention and walk through or away. But what if the door I thought was open, was just made of glass? And when I walked through it would shatter and leave me with cuts and covered in so many shards of glass it would takes months of tweezer work to fully recover.

What if the door that felt like it was closing just needed a good kick to open and be the right one I was supposed to walk through all along?
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But what if it wasn’t about doors at all? What if wasn’t about right or wrong ones to walk through? What if it was about the leap? What if I was supposed to take it even when I couldn’t see anything but rocks at the bottom of the cliff? What if I just took a chance and believed there really was always a net?

When I thought about it a little bit more I realized I have been blessed to live surrounded by jumpers.

My Nana’s husband died of heart failure at age 42, leaving her with five kids and a house that was in the middle of a future freeway in a tiny Northern New Mexico town. When the state bought the house, she could have kept going along the easy path hugging the cliff. Stay in the tiny town full of family support. Nope, she didn’t do that. She jumped and moved 300 miles away from that tiny town to the city so that her kids would have more and better opportunities. Her net is now full of grandkids and their families, all extremely grateful she leaped.

My sister had a great job as a marketing director in the tech world in her 30’s. But a corporate division break up and sale left her with a choice. One path with the old company, one with the new. But instead of turning left or right along the paved trail, she kept walking. She went straight to the edge of the cliff and jumped. She moved to an island off the coast of Honduras to teach. Nope she didn’t have a degree in education or a teaching license or certificate. But her net appeared anyway. Eventually that net included a husband, family and the opportunity to open her own school.

It’s scary to believe in the net, especially when you can’t see it. And when it appears it might be made up of frayed strands of rope held together with knots and duct tape. But it’s there. It’s always there. Because it’s made within us. It is created with our strength, with our resilience, our heart, and our very souls. It is weaved with the love of family, of friends, of faith that make each of us unique and special. And when we believe in ourselves enough to listen to that little voice of our spirit speaking to our heart, we can be certain the net will appear, so go ahead and leap.