What Love Is

It was a strange yesterday. It seems as though I spent the entire day covering people’s asses. But if you love somebody that’s what you do. You cover their ass when they can’t cover it themselves.

Enough about my friend Dee!

It all started with my son Jeremy and my brilliant daughter-in-law Marie. They showed up and that led to Fish Tacos at Café Loco which led to Roma and the Bored meeting which led to Bernie’s last night where Sam Adams and Gordo play damn good live music! Then it all got crazy. Typical Tybee!

Yet in the midst of all of this I am reminded that I live on an island. Goddess and I walk to Shirley’s sad little holy dock and it takes my breath away. I jog the beach and the joy of the ocean still makes me tingle with excitement as though I were still a little boy. The smell of the marsh (it smells like sex in the Tropics) makes my skin come alive and the breath that I inhale is pure, unadulterated love. And you take love where you find it and you hold onto it with everything that you have inside of you.

That’s Tybee.

Just a few months ago I would have never noticed these things. I was living a fast and famous life changing the way that the world dealt with homelessness, health care for the uninsured, treating the mentally ill and such. I never slowed down. I never stopped. It was all consuming and … in the end, it consumed my all.

For seven months now I’ve been on this Sabbatical. I left my career. Love left my house. Having never really been alone, loneliness blanketed where I lived. Quiet became the language that I spoke.

Sustenance came from the most unlikely of places --- my children made certain that I ate; the Breakfast Club ensured that I was touched with love; Shirley would break into my house to force company. Stacy was relentless in sending me messages of love.

Roma of all people took long walks down the sidewalk with me with her old arm hung over my shoulder and just listen and nod. O Johnny demanded to know what was wrong and when I told him he just showed me friendship. Cheryl and Jodee were constantly letting me know that I always have a place to go.

And Johnny O and Judy rearranged their lives to take care of the one that I had which was in shambles.

And a dog licked my tears when I was immobile to do anything other than cry.

So I sat beloved back deck with that dog and several things happened. My dear friend Fran came back from the dead and reminded me of her thousand shades of green and all of the love that hides there. Goddess took to writing with me every morning my laying her head under my bare feet as I typed and it was …family. My friend Nancee at the Breakfast Club took to kissing me and giving me long hugs to chase the sadness away from the morning. Old friends from college made a pilgrimage to my house and laughter returned. An old partner returned and demanded to be a new partner.

Someone asked me yesterday what I’ve learned on this Sabbatical. There are several things. You notice more when you slow down --- the colors of the marsh, Fran’s thousands shades of green, how much a hug can mean, and the joy of laughter.

That it’s better to be honest because it takes too much energy to be something else. I’ve learned to be open to the things and people that come my way and to not chase things as much.

I’ve learned who my friends are. And I’ve really learned who they are not.

I’ve learned that it is ok to invest time and money in me because nobody else will. This is the only life I’ve got so while I’ve given a lot of it away to others it is fine and perfectly acceptable to give pieces of it to yourself. And that nobody … and I mean nobody … will give you permission to do that except you.

When you just stop and have only yourself …in the end …it is just yourself that you have anyway. It’s only you that you have influence over. Be open to what you want and need. Everybody else will deny you of these things and you are the only person who will allow you to follow your heart.

For the past couple of years my life was exposed to the world to do with what it wished. It wasn’t pretty and I lost a lot.

But then these things happened on this Sabbatical. And people who love me covered my ass when I couldn’t. And I love them.

And the most important thing that I’ve learned on this Sabbatical is …what love is.

And what it’s not.