"A Mother and Her Daughter"

As I walked down my path

The wind whispered your name thru the leaves

"Jeanine"

Flowers beside me carried the scent of you

A wish I had for so long

A mother and her daughter

Nightmares

Replaced by dreams of what you would become

As visions of your spirit

Danced inside my soul

There is no greater love

A mother and her daughter

Your beauty:

Art no painter can illustrate

No songstress can serenade

A story no writer can pen

A secret no one can disclose

A mother and her daughter

My body will decay

And return to the earth

Dust to dust

But my soul you will carry with you

Infinitely

A bond unbreakable

By time

A mother and her daughter

For my Daughter, Jeanine

-by Deannalynn Arzola

"Sigh No More"

Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more.

    Men were deceivers ever,

One foot in sea, and one on shore,

    To one thing constant never.

Then sigh not so, but let them go,

    And be you blithe and bonny,

Converting all your sounds of woe

    Into hey nonny, nonny.

Sing no more ditties, sing no mo'

    Of dumps so dull and heavy.

The fraud of men was ever so

    Since summer first was leafy.

Then sigh not so, but let them go,

    And be you blithe and bonny,

Converting all your sounds of woe

    Into hey, nonny, nonny.

-by William Shakespeare

from "Much Ado About Nothing"

"The Lie"

Go, soul, the body's guest,

Upon a thankless arrant;

Fear not to touch the best;

The truth shall be thy warrant:

Go, since I needs must die,  

And give the world the lie.

Say to the court it glows

And shines like rotten wood,

Say to the church it shows

What's good, and doth no good:

If church and court reply,

Then give them both the lie.

Tell potentates, they live

Acting, by others' action;

Not lov'd unless they give;

Not strong, but by affection.

If potentates reply,

Give potentates the lie.

Tell men of high condition,

That manage the estate,

Their purpose is ambition;

Their practice only hate.

And if they once reply,

Then give them all the lie.

Tell them that brave it most,

They beg for more by spending,

Who in their greatest cost

Like nothing but commending.

And if they make reply,

Then give them all the lie.

Tell zeal it wants devotion;

Tell love it is but lust;

Tell time it meets but motion;

Tell flesh it is but dust:

And wish them not reply,

For thou must give the lie.

Tell age it daily wasteth;

Tell honour how it alters;

Tell beauty how she blasteth;

Tell favour how it falters:

And as they shall reply,

Give every one the lie.

Tell wit how much it wrangles

In tickle points of niceness;

Tell wisdom she entangles

Herself in over-wiseness:

And when they do reply,

Straight give them both the lie.

Tell physic of her boldness;

Tell skill it is prevention;

Tell charity of coldness;

Tell law it is contention:

And as they do reply,

So give them still the lie.

Tell fortune of her blindness;

Tell nature of decay;

Tell friendship of unkindness;

Tell justice of delay:

And if they will reply,

Then give them all the lie.

Tell arts they have no soundness,

But vary by esteeming;

Tell schools they want profoundness,

And stand too much on seeming.

If arts and schools reply,

Give arts and schools the lie.

Tell faith it's fled the city;

Tell how the country erreth;

Tell manhood, shakes off pity;

Tell virtue, least preferreth.

And if they do reply,

Spare not to give the lie.

So when thou hast, as I

Commanded thee, done blabbing;

Because to give the lie

Deserves no less than stabbing:

Stab at thee, he that will,

No stab thy soul can kill!

-Sir Walter Raleigh 

Life in a Love

by Robert Browning

Escape me?

Never, beloved!

While I am I, and you are you,

So long as the world contains us both,

Me the loving and you the loth.

While the one eludes, must the other pursue

My life is a fault, at last, I fear:

It seems too much like a fate, indeed!

Though I do my best, I shall scarce succeed.

But what if I fail in my purpose, here?

It is but to keep the nerves at strain,

To dry one's eyes and laugh at a fall,

And baffled, get up and begin, again.

So the chase takes up one's life, that's all.

While look, but once, from your farthest bound,

At me, so deep, in the dusk and dark,

No sooner the old hope goes to ground

Than a new one, straight to the self-same mark,

I shape me...

Ever-

Removed

Time is irrelevant, in terms of infinity. Yes, irrelevant. Space is simply physics. Destiny is unchangeable, no matter what they say about being in control of it. It is in control of you. Fate is what we receive in this life for what we did in the last one. Fighting all these things only serves to exhaust you. When you're too tired to fight it any longer, as I am, in regards to fighting my own destiny, come fall into my arms. I will comfort you and hold all your demons at bay.
THIS is what love is...

"Winter Walk"

Frozen blades of grass

crunch under my stride

as I walk the path set forth for me.

The air so frigid,

it sets alight

my lungs. 

This passage

brings to memory

discontented winters.

My mirage

awaits me 

in the distance,

tempting my continuance.

 

Spring teases

with hope

and intention.

Certitude in this destiny

suddenly stripped from thought

and soul.

In it's place, 

the present vision...

the altitudinous, barren trees

of our existence.

-Deannalynn Arzola

"The One"

In terms of love and life, what defines the one?
Back in 1992, I met my future husband. He was a beautiful man. He was smart and kind and sweet. He was recently graduated from culinary school and looked so hot in his white chef's coat and black pants. As my degree is in restaurant management, this man quite immediately appeared to be "The One". We fell in love very hard and very fast. Everything about David made me dizzy. We were amazing together, in every regard. He was my best friend, a truly magnificent boyfriend, you know, the kinda guy who takes you on a date in a whole other city, or state, and I knew from the beginning that he would be an excellent father and roll model to my 5 year old daughter. We got married in a little chapel in Vegas, just as he had always wanted to do, and we shared an amazing life. He is the person who bought me my first house and my first new car. He protected me from the monsters and relieved my pain on an exponential level. I remember the day vividly, when it struck me, how much this man was the one. I had to excuse myself from the kitchen to catch my breath. I leaned up against the wall (a pleasure I enjoy to no end these days...) and slid down, as my knees gave out from underneath me. It was at that moment I realized, this man was MY husband.
Needless to say, as I sit here and expound the definition of "The One", my marriage has not survived the time. I guess you could say we fell out of love with each other.
So, here in lies my ponderance...
Was David "The One"?
I believe that at that time, he most certainly was. I've always been one of those people who lives their life in pieces. For instance, I twirled a baton in high school. I was in the band and I played the flute. I haven't picked up either in thirty years. I have been a mom, a wife, a business owner, and, yes, a daughter. The only thing I have carried over with me into my present life is my daughter. She is, however, almost twenty-seven years old and is a wife and mother, herself. As I reflect on my life, thus far, I see it in pieces.
In this piece of my life, I am a single gal, who commits most of her time to her career. I don't even perform the same job duties in this life as I did in the past. In fact, I even live in a part of the country I had never before visited. It's basically a whole new life. As a writer, I should probably refer to said pieces as chapters, so this chapter of my life is vastly different from all the chapters prior.
When I first moved to the Pacific Northwest, I had plenty of time to shed the past and envision the future. I took a Greyhound bus, so as to see this most amazing part of  the country thru the window, frame by frame. Once I passed Mt. Shasta, it was time to consider the future. With no ambivalence, whatsoever, I declared my freedom from all relationships other than that of my dog and myself. After thirty-one years of boyfriends, lovers, fiances and husbands, it was time for me to have a relationship with me. I had no illusions, desires or aspirations of sharing myself with anyone. And I was looking forward to this untapped resource.
Then, one day, as I was minding my own business and living my life, I was stricken hard with that sort of feeling you get when you have deja-vus. Here is this man standing in front of me and I literally felt the current of electricity run through me. It was weird. I have met a few people in my life who I knew from moment one would be in my life forever. These people generally do not make up the pieces of my life. They are still here, however, they are living their own pieces, writing their own stories. But it was love at first site with each of them. And they are the friends that I will always carry with me. This moment in time was a little different. It was kind of a magical thing. I have always believed in reincarnation. In fact, I am sure that the truest loves of my life have been there all my lives. So, I recognized him, immediately. I swear to you, I believed at that moment, he recognized me, too. He has that intuitive quality about him. I wanted to put the breaks on this right away. I had no intention of falling in love with anything other than my beautiful Pacific Northwest. So, being the control freak that I am, I did everything in my power to avoid the situation, entirely. For most people, this is probably a pretty effective method. For me, not so much. I started receiving all these signs from the cosmos. Not from him. Apparently, he was clueless. But from the path of my destiny. His name or home state would pop up in the commission of my work, we would wear the same color on the same day, recognizing him to be like many of my loved ones, I automatically presumed his birthday and astrological sign, which is Scorpio, so low and behold, everywhere I go, I see scorpions. I see them on the ground, I see them on my Facebook page, I see them on tires on trucks. The number eleven, the birth month is everywhere, as well. In fact, if you combine the addresses of the two places I have lived since I met him, they include his birth day, birth month, my birth day, and birth year. These are my houses, for God's sake. These magical little boats that sail directly towards the islands of him are just the tip of the iceberg. The information was giving me migraines on a daily basis and when I could no longer contain the information within me, I had to share it with him. This was an extremely difficult thing for me to do. I fought it every step of the way. When I felt I could keep it to myself no longer, the attempt on my part in the art of communication was so inherently difficult, I almost just got on a plane and flew back to Vegas.
Anyway, I did it. The timing was off. The setting was uncomfortable. The energy was extreme. I was inept. He was young. It was a nightmare.
In the subsequent days and months, I began to believe that I should never have said anything at all. This is a man with allot of pots on the stove. Allot!!! It has been quite a journey. There have been people in both of our corners who have advised against this blessed union. There are a plethora of reasons already in existence that should prevent the furtherance of said union. There have been moments when I questioned my faith, my intuition, my sanity. There was a day when I loudly exclaimed to him that I was moving home. There were days I have cried so hard, I had to excuse myself from society and just cry. There were days I just wanted to die. But I didn't. I moved through each day and every emotion with all the strength I could gather. There are several reasons for my perseverance. For one, those lovely, little aforementioned magical signs have never once ceased to remind me that this man is probably my soul mate. All the while, as we were both living our own lives and doing our own things, he was there, in the background, advancing my life in the most exponential ways. Ways that have brought me the greatest joys I have ever experienced, like Sunday brunches in my shared home with the people I love most, and nights of wicked bourbon and existential conversations by the fire, and birthdays with the people who know my deepest fears. If not for this man, I would not have these memories to comfort me in my twilight. And I mean that. He is directly responsible for my knowing my people and my ability to afford this life I live. Allot of my perseverance lies in my faith that this man is capable of the most intense love there is. I know this of him; he is deep and dark and passionate and self deprecating and scared and lonely and unsure and somehow feels he is unworthy of receiving the same kind of love in return. He makes me want to take him into my arms and comfort him, and enlighten him to this knowledge I have of who he really is. He is kind and I know and trust that he will support me on my causes for as long as I am alive. He is beautiful and smart and uses both sides of his brain. He is creative and business savvy at the same time. He is duplicitous in this respect, and in many respects. He is confident but self loathing, intuitive but clueless (or so he says), loyal and wild. He is amazing and infuriating and funny and sad and eloquent and inarticulate.
When I can feel him thinking about me, my soul feels as if it is on fire. I know that he knows who I am, and I am certain that he appreciates all the things that I am made up of, like my loyalty, my patience, my understanding, and my number one rule in the game of life; "Change your mind, not your people". There is definitely a magical connection there, and that is something that is very important to who I am as a fellow inhabitant of this earth. I believe in magic. I pay attention to the signs, and I love the people who do so, as well, the most.
So, is he "The One"?
I am almost as terrified to disclose my thoughts on this subject as I was to tell him about said signs. In this chapter of my story, he is the one. After everything we have been through, I still love him for exactly who he is, and I always will. And he knows this. And I'm glad he knows, because he deserves this knowledge and no one else on earth deserves to know this about his person more than he does.
He is my "One". Not for the typical crazy infatuation reasons that scare the hell out of most people, but because I understand him, respect him, trust him, appreciate him, and I know that once he is surrounded by someone like that, the feeling of unworthiness I see in him will surely fall away, and that's what it's really all about, anyway. Once you have that person in your life, you want to expound their virtues to everyone in the world. Most of them probably wont understand, but that's okay.
Trust your intuition. Recognize your destiny. Be the best person you can be. And I mean really make an effort to do so. Your "One" will more than likely be the reason that you are. Mine is.
So when you find your person, the one whom you love and respect, unconditionally, perhaps they are not the one, but you are.
And if you are, share this information with them. They sould know...
You never know, or perhaps you do, in return, they WILL be "The One".

-Deannalynn Arzola