Yep. It’s Valentine’s Day so we are talking about how you need more than love to be happy and fulfilled. Or here, let’s rephrase it: It’s not necessarily love that makes you happy and fulfilled. And that’s what we talk about this podcast. Plus, giant pandas take each other hostage to court and giraffes have a lot of water sports.
DOG TIP FOR LIFE
Sparty and Pogie
Loving each other is way more important than fighting over who is alpha or blaming each other. Also, hug people when they come home and wag your tail as much as possible.
AND we have a writing tips podcast called WRITE BETTER NOW! It’s taking a bit of a hiatus, but there are a ton of tips over there.
We have a podcast, LOVING THE STRANGE, which we stream biweekly live on Carrie’s Facebook and Twitter and YouTube on Fridays. Her Facebook and Twitter handles are all carriejonesbooks or carriejonesbook. But she also has extra cool content focused on writing tips here.
Carrie is reading one of her raw poems every once in awhile on CARRIE DOES POEMS. And there you go! Whew! That’s a lot!
Share this if you want and also because it would be super nice of you!
Hi! This year (2023), I’m continuing my quest to share a poem on my blog and podcast and read it aloud. It’s all a part of my quest to be brave and apparently the things that I’m scared about still include:
My spoken voice
My raw poems.
Thanks for being here with me and cheering me on, and I hope that you can become braver this year, too!
For Anne & Maxine
Why is it that the dead
Never listen to my pillow talk?
I am tired, but can’t sleep
Again and again and again.
You snore next to me
And occasionally twitch
As the dog snuggles in between us,
Released from her crate
Because she cries so much.
Again and again and again,
Why is that my whines
Never wake anyone up?
Not even myself.
When Your Father Isn’t Your Father
This morning when I planted
An apple tree in the backyard again
Because the last had been crushed
By the weight of beaten maple branches, broken fence posts
That had separated our yard
From the neighbor’s barren grass,
Until a storm knocked everything over,
Breaking, breaking, breaking,
I thought of you planting spruces
Wherever you lived, whenever you lived.
Delighting in shaping them
Into proper silhouettes, you’d said,
“Even Santa would approve of these big boys.”
You and I are not blood it turns out because Mom
Got lonely, bored, needy, got something. You never knew.
Firefighter lungs took you away before I learned,
Particulates turning into cancer all around your thick, hobbit chest.
Invading. Invading. Invading. Taking away
What seemed so solid and true.
You told me trees talked to other trees,
Anchored each other into the ground,
Talked to humans, too. Their species
Classification didn’t matter, you said.
It didn’t matter if they weren’t alike.
Maple could love oak could love spruce could love apple
The same way I could love you even when our blood
Turned out not to be the same. We still grew together.
On Thursday, my co-podcaster, Shaun, and husband guy, takes over the blog.
He’s adorable. I hope you’ll read what he says even if he does occasionally sound like a surfer dude from the 1990sor Captain Pontification. And no, we don’t always agree. 🙂
These are the things I have heard in the last thirty seconds in my house.
Carrie, after turning around and seeing my completely blank blogpost Word document, “Oh my God that is a naked page!”
Me handily offering up an intelligent rebuttal, “Yeah, look down here at the bottom. Isn’t this every writer’s worst nightmare? Page one of one, zero words.”
Carrie then points across the office. “Oh my God, there is a furball blowing across the floor!”
I was having such a hard time trying to figure out what to write today! I knew that I wanted it to be about love, in some way at least. However, I just couldn’t latch onto an idea that was striking me both in the heart and the funny bone.
Then Carrie had the gall to try and check in on my blogpost writing progress! I mean, yeah, she is the one who has to do all of the pre-posting work and whatnot, and is totally dependent upon me, “the talent,” to pen a masterpiece, but come on. Then it struck me.
Love is all about mental flexibility! Love is about not giving one crap if you just made a hilarious joke and the person listening to your joke doesn’t even acknowledge said joke, let alone laugh.
“Oh my God, there is a furball blowing across the floor!”
Love is all about taking a picture of the cat lounging on the couch cleaning her privates and then showing that picture to the object of your love. Object of love then chuckles and says, “She has the same look on her face that you always look at me with.”
I say, “I was trying to get her to give me a ‘what the hell are you looking at face.’”
Object of love says, “Yeah, that’s the one I mean.”
Then we both chuckled a bit. At least I think she did, but either way, we went on loving each other.
See what I mean? Love is the ability to be flexible! You either have to be mentally flexible enough to roll with the swell of the waves or mentally flexible enough to convince yourself that the other person is that mentally flexible and forgives you.
Actually, I am just kidding. That doesn’t usually work out to good after a while. Be mentally flexible! Remember that nobody is perfect and your way is not the only good way.
Have a very flexible week and remember to always Love Your Way Through It!
Shaun
BE A PART OF OUR MISSION!
Hey! We’re all about inspiring each other to be weird, to be ourselves and to be brave and we’re starting to collect stories about each other’s bravery. Those brave moments can be HUGE or small, but we want you to share them with us so we can share them with the world. You can be anonymous if you aren’t brave enough to use your name. It’s totally chill.
Want to be part of the team? Send us a quick (or long) email and we’ll read it here and on our YouTube channel.
LET’S HANG OUT!
HEY! DO YOU WANT TO SPEND MORE TIME TOGETHER?
MAYBE TAKE A COURSE, CHILL ON SOCIAL MEDIA, BUY ART OR A BOOK, OR LISTEN TO OUR PODCAST?
In order to find perfection you must be able to forgive
On Thursday, my co-podcaster, Shaun, and husband guy, takes over the blog.
He’s adorable. I hope you’ll read what he says even if he does occasionally sound like a surfer dude from the 1990s.
Have you ever made up your own definition of a word?
I think that in a debate situation I tend to do it quite frequently and that is really laughable but a sign of my ego and desire to be correct!
I am not talking about a debate situation here; I am just referring to everyday life and everyday words. The specific word that I am thinking about right now is perfection.
My definition of perfection would be something more like the quality or state of being that is perfect in the eyes of the beholder regardless of any fault, defect or flaw. You see my point? How can anything ever be perfect except to the person, or group of people, who think that it is perfect?
Of course, I realize that my definition takes on the assumption that all things have faults, defects or flaws, and I believe this to be true. Especially when we are talking about human beings! While I may think that my wife is perfect, others may not. While that may make them stupid people in my opinion, the truth is that none of us are without flaws.
Therefore, it stands to reason that in order to find perfection you must be able to forgive. I know that I think that I am perfect, but I also know that Carrie does a hell of a lot of forgiving!
So, what is my point you may be asking in a frustrated mumble.
Well, it is basically that none of us are perfect. Nothing is perfect. And if you believe that someone or something is perfect than you are capable of forgiveness. I don’t think that a lot of people think about it in that simplistic form, but it is true. So, let’s start doing more forgiving, less criticism, much more loving and much less belittling! Basically, remember to always Love Your Way Through It!
Peace,
Shaun
LET’S HANG OUT!
HEY! DO YOU WANT TO SPEND MORE TIME TOGETHER?
MAYBE TAKE A COURSE, CHILL ON SOCIAL MEDIA, BUY ART OR A BOOK, OR LISTEN TO OUR PODCAST?
But you know what real, real beauty is? It is the beauty that one individual sees when they look at the love of their life! It is the beauty that starts at a certain younger age and never changes through the years, no matter how much time passes!
Sometimes Shaun is swoon worthy.
On Thursday, my co-podcaster, Shaun, and husband guy, takes over the blog.
He’s adorable. I hope you’ll read what he says even if he does occasionally sound like a surfer dude from the 1990s.
I am sure that there must be a name or a scientific explanation for what I am about to talk about, but I will tell you up front that I am too lazy to look it up and will be simply speaking from my own experience here. So, let’s get started!
If I was to title this blog post, I would call it, Humanity, the Gateway to Love. And not everyone may be able to relate to this because I think it takes some life experience, some maturity and possibly just some plain ol’ years on this planet to understand.
Beauty, what is it? The first answer that comes to my mind is that it is not the popular construct of television and social media. That is mostly makeup and great camera work! Real beauty is the ability to feel attractive and not have to wear makeup or feel pressured to do so. Real beauty is the ability to be secure in who are and not have to worry about people fawning over you all of the time. Real beauty is the ability to not even think about applying makeup, not worry about wearing the latest fashion or having the newest electronic device and still being able to leave the house, socialize and treat others as though they are your equal, nothing better and certainly nothing less!
But you know what real, real beauty is? It is the beauty that one individual sees when they look at the love of their life! It is the beauty that starts at a certain younger age and never changes through the years, no matter how much time passes! It is the beauty that allows an eighty-year-old person to look at their eighty-year-old partner and see the exact same beauty (or more) as when they were both twenty!
This is true beauty, not built on purely physical traits but rather the totality of the circumstances for which one fell in love. Personality, intellect, the ability to relate, the ability to deal with life’s greatest challenges and life’s greatest humors, and depth of soul and heart are what make up a human’s beauty! These should be the characteristics which we look at or for in another human.
Yes, this is a mixed bag post as I am speaking both of general socialization and interaction and I am also talking about love and partnership. Leave the physical qualities out of the picture and treat one another as humans who are something much greater than their skins. As a world we will all benefit from this approach and as an individual you will too. If you happen to be looking for love, this will help you find everlasting love. As someone who was lucky enough to check all these qualities off in another, I can tell you that the beauty of your partner will never diminish as a result, no matter how old you are!
Love Your Way Through It,
Shaun
our cute cats
LET’S HANG OUT!
HEY! DO YOU WANT TO SPEND MORE TIME TOGETHER?
MAYBE TAKE A COURSE, CHILL ON SOCIAL MEDIA, BUY ART OR A BOOK, OR LISTEN TO OUR PODCAST?
On Thursday, my co-podcaster, Shaun, and husband guy, takes over the blog.
He’s adorable. I hope you’ll read what he says even if he does occasionally sound like a surfer dude from the 1990s.
So, happy Thursday!
Carrie and I do a live podcast on Friday nights at 7:00 p.m. eastern time and we have been having loads of fun doing it! We love hot, as in spicy, foods and sauces so we have done a hot wings challenge for one episode and we are going to do another one with a different line-up of hot sauces this Friday. The podcast is called Loving The Strange and we would love to entertain you this Friday night if you have nothing better to do in this time of COVID boredom.
We actually purchased a brand new sauce for this Friday night’s festivities and we both just gave it a try.
First, let me tell you that it is called “Da’Bomb, The Final Answer.” Second, let me tell that, IT ROCKS!
Rated at a supposed 1,500,000 Scoville units, it will light you up and keep doing so for a good ten minutes. Neither of us are hot sauce wimps and we thoroughly enjoyed trying a little bit of our new product a few minutes ago.
When I say a “little bit,” I mean just that. The bottle literally comes with a dabber attached to the cap and you need just one drop to get the amazing effects of this potent sauce. However, this blog is not an advertisement for the previously stated product, although I would recommend it to anyone who likes heat, it is more of an advertisement for our podcast and having fun in life.
The true point of this entire diatribe is that sometimes people need a bit of a pick-me-up in the form of excitement. Now, not everyone likes heat in the extreme and that is exactly why there are thousands of different hot sauces manufactured for you to purchase. Even if you hate heat you should try the advice that I am about to give, just buy something more mild.
If you are in a funk and need to be distracted by a pleasant pain that you can share with someone whom you care about, try a little hot sauce. I know that you are thinking right now, “What is wrong with this idiot?”
Seriously though, what does it mean to be in a relationship with someone special? Does it not mean sharing experiences and the emotions that go with those experiences? My point!
Eat some hot sauce that is outside of your comfort zone and share that experience with your partner in life.
This little “trip” will allow you to embody so many emotions! You may do any and/or all of the following; cry, laugh, swear, roll around on the floor, drink milk straight from the jug or curse my very existence.
The point is that whatever you were doing before you embarked on this journey will be forgotten and you will have just shared something unique with your special someone. It may hurt, but in the end, you will have a smile on your face.
As a matter of fact, I am now making the following recommendation to all budding couples – try the hot sauce challenge approach to gauging how compatible you are. If, in the end, you don’t both end up laughing and enjoying your mutual pain then they are probably not the right one for you.
But, regardless, remember to Love Your Way Through It!
Spicy vibes and keep your hands away from your eyes,
Shaun
LET’S HANG OUT!
HEY! DO YOU WANT TO SPEND MORE TIME TOGETHER?
MAYBE TAKE A COURSE, CHILL ON SOCIAL MEDIA, BUY ART OR A BOOK, OR LISTEN TO OUR PODCAST?
A flawed human is not an excuse and sometimes forgiveness is like a rope that will never reach the bottom of certain chasms so one must be careful of falling into those unforgivable crevasses.
On Thursday, my co-podcaster, Shaun, and husband guy, takes over the blog.
He’s adorable. I hope you’ll read what he says even if he does occasionally sound like a surfer dude from the 1990s.
Yesterday, Carrie and I had the opportunity to enjoy some of that rare COVID socialization time with a friend of ours. You know, very safe, on the deck, six feet apart and all three of us wearing masks. Not bad as it was very nice out, but it sure puts a damper on the drinking aspect of visiting.
Our friend, younger than us by a decade, was telling us about his new relationship while politely lamenting the issues of his first marriage from which he is recently detached.
It was very interesting listening to someone talk about the possibility of telling another person that they love them for the first time and wondering when is a good time to do so and not seem pushy, needy, or in a rush to move any further than the very comfortable zone that they are currently in.
As I sat talking with Carrie and our friend, I realized that over the course of our fairly long and complex relationship of undulating emotions and varied experiences, we had reached a point in our lives where we are truly loving partners. We are friends, confidantes, lovers and partners and we have managed to navigate both the smooth, fair weather times and the trying hurricanes of life.
I attribute much of this to an exorbitant amount of patience on both of our parts, but also forgiveness, love and the realization that not one single soul on the face of this Earth is perfect and without flaws. I also realize that being a flawed human is not an excuse and sometimes forgiveness is like a rope that will never reach the bottom of certain chasms so one must be careful of falling into those unforgivable crevasses.
My point is that not only am I extremely lucky but that love, while not a miracle cure, is a very powerful healing ointment and you would be surprised what happens when you apply a little to an emotional wound! Please try it, for me, for yourself and for all of humanity, Love Your Way Through It!
Happy loving,
Shaun
HELP US AND DO AN AWESOME GOOD DEED
Thanks to all of you who keep listening to our weirdness on the DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE podcast and our new LOVING THE STRANGE podcast.
This podcast isn’t about writing. It isn’t about life tips. It’s really inspired by how Shaun and I are such opposites about so many things and yet we still love each other. There’s got to be a lesson somewhere in there, right?
It’s unscripted and fun and just meant to make you feel like you’re hanging out with two weird people talking about strange things.
Please like and share and subscribe, it totally helps us out!
We don’t need to be in love or to even feel love in order to make another feel loved or cared about, we simply need to remember that the most powerful love is the love that we give to another, without expectation of obligation or return.
This morning I realized that it has been exactly one year since we traveled as a family.
This week is a school break week here in Maine and last year at this time Carrie, myself and our youngest daughter, Kittiey, drove to Georgia to see our oldest daughter, Emily, who was in the Army and stationed at Ft. Benning at the time.
After spending a couple of days with Emily we drove to Florida to spend the remainder of our vacation and see my family.
Shortly after returning from that trip, Carrie and I managed to spend a weekend in Portland Maine for her birthday. Since then, none of the three of us (Emily is currently isolated at Tuck University getting her MBA.) have traveled more than forty miles away from our house.
Both of those trips out of the house were for specialized dentist appointments and other than those joyous trips to the dentist, none of us has gone more than twenty miles away from the house and all of these trips are for curbside grocery pickup at the nearest Walmart. Curse you for this involuntary hermitic existence COVID-19!
While it may seem as though I am complaining, and I am a little bit because we all love to travel and see new people and places, complaining is not what this blog is about.
It is about love, the miraculous fact that while we are in constant contact with each other (Kittiey is 100 percent remote learning), we all still love each other and nothing has drastically changed in how we feel about each other, unless it is a deeper understanding of patience.
To me, that is a testament to the power of love!
After all, love is the mother of all things good; kindness, empathy, compassion and understanding. Honestly, I am a little surprised by our success in continued friendship through this last year and I am supremely happy about the results!
For those of you who may have suffered far more than anyone should ever have to, I offer my greatest condolences and wishes for better times.
Even without COVID-19 the world faces a myriad of disasters every day and somehow humans have always managed to survive the unthinkable forces working against us.
Why?
Because we are capable of loving one another.
We are capable of being compassionate and empathetic to one another. We are capable of respecting one another.
We don’t need to be in love or to even feel love in order to make another feel loved or cared about, we simply need to remember that the most powerful love is the love that we give to another, without expectation of obligation or return.
We must simply remember and realize that love is the greatest gift and the greatest investment! Always, love your way through it.
Shaun
LET’S HANG OUT!
HEY! DO YOU WANT TO SPEND MORE TIME TOGETHER?
MAYBE TAKE A COURSE, CHILL ON SOCIAL MEDIA, BUY ART OR A BOOK, OR LISTEN TO OUR PODCAST?
hat’s the way love should be. It should be something that solids you up, that makes you throw your arms open, makes your eyes sparkle, something that spreads and spreads and stays in the present tense.
I’ve been lucky enough to be a fill in dog walker for someone who has A.L.S. this week and it made me think of my friend, Jerry Kauffman, who died of A.L.S. in February 2008.
I still think of Jerry in the present tense even though it’s been years, but I still adore him and that is the sort of thing that doesn’t go from present tense to past tense because of something like death.
That’s what Jerry Kaufman taught me. He taught me that the good things – love, adoration – they endure.
Jerry was not a perfect man. He could be almost too loud sometimes. He could be brash some other times. That was part of his enthusiasm, his style. He always knew what he believed and sometimes what he believed struck people in a bad way. That’s not why I adore him, but it’s part of why I admire him. It takes an immense amount of courage to always loudly and bravely state what you believe and what you think is right even when no other person agrees with you. And then to sometimes change your opinion after you’ve done that.
It’s something I wish more people could do, could feel safe to do, that their egos could allow them to do.
But the reason that I adore Jerry is because he adores his wife, Jacqui.
Jerry’s adoration of Jacqui stays in the present tense, too. Something like death never changes that.
The first time I met them I was doing an article for WERU’s newspaper/bulletin. I drove down to their house in Surry. I was in my twenties.
I was really, really shy.
I parked my Subaru, listened to the sounds of dogs yipping and stared through the darkness at a house lit up from inside with absolutely golden light, trying to brave myself up enough to go inside.
Then Jerry flung open the door.
The first thing I noticed was his hair. There was all this hair, wild, dark, curly, like a lion’s mane.
I may have stepped back.
But Jerry wasn’t good about letting people step back. He stepped forward bellowing, “Hello! Hello!” and pulled me into a hug.
Then I noticed Jacqui, his wife. She too had amazing hair, amazing in a beautiful way. But the best thing was her eyes.
Writers always talk about people’s eyes sparkling, but Jacqui’s really did. They sparkled brilliantly reminding me of the warm golden lights of their house. Then I looked at Jerry’s eyes. They were sparkling too.
“The great love of my life,” he said, gesturing towards her.
I knew right then, absolutely, without a doubt, that what they were sparkling about was each other. They loved each other more than any couple I have ever met. It made me sigh with happiness. It made me smile. It made me want to be just like them.
It’s about twenty years later and now I am a lot closer.
It’s about twenty years later and now I love a man more than I could ever imagine. It’s the kind of love that Jerry and Jacqui have.
It’s about twenty years later and Jerry has died so many years ago already.
I know, I know absolutely without a doubt that a lot of people think Jerry is a hero for dealing with A.L.S., for making himself into Stem Cell Man (his adopted superhero name) and approaching illness with a vitality and humor that most people never show when they are healthy.
But for me, Jerry and Jacqui Kaufmann are heroes for loving. It’s rare that you find people so willing to put all of their hearts, all of their souls, out there for the world to see. Every time Jerry saw my little girl, which was about once a year, he would throw his arms open, wrap her in a hug and tell her how beautiful and brilliant she was. That’s the way love should be. It should be something that solids you up, that makes you throw your arms open, makes your eyes sparkle, something that spreads and spreads and stays in the present tense.
That’s why I adore Jerry Kaufman.
That’s why I will always adore Jerry Kaufman, because no matter what else he did or what else he was, no matter what fights he faced or opinions he carried, he is someone who taught me all about that kind of love and how that kind of love is truly the essence, the joyous essence of a beautiful, beautiful soul.You can find out more about Jerry at his website. It has a lot of information about A.L.S., a place to donate, and a bit about Jerry and it was made out of love, not just for Jerry, but for the world.
LET’S HANG OUT!
HEY! DO YOU WANT TO SPEND MORE TIME TOGETHER?
MAYBE TAKE A COURSE, CHILL ON SOCIAL MEDIA, BUY ART OR A BOOK, OR LISTEN TO OUR PODCAST?
