As a significant note, I would like to share more about this beautiful song.
In 9th grade at junior high school, my classmate, Linda Creed was the center of attention for her buoyant spirit, her out-going nature, and ability to lead. At lunchtime, she would go to the middle of the gym floor and invite us all to dance and sing to the latest music. I always thought it odd how completely immersed in the music she seemed to be, and her insistence for us to come together to dance in the gym after lunch at school. She made it happen just about everyday, if I recall correctly, breaking racial barriers and other irritating issues we faced in school.
Our school was in a neighborhood comprised of predominately Jewish people. So the school was a reflection of the neighborhood and was populated of 50% Jewish and 50% everyone else. I make these facts known as they indicate how all encompassing Linda’s influence actually was. Linda insisted we all come together to have fun dancing, and we did. She was infectious, beaming and so happy being able to create with music and dancing, a moment that would bring us together like nothing else could.
Linda was Jewish so at first one might wonder how and what part of her felt so compelled to rouse us all to dance to rhythm and blues at lunchtime. We could feel that she was special somehow.
Years later, I learned that Linda had became a standout songwriter, creating some of the best lyrics and music of our era and in collaboration with Gamble & Huff, a significant part of what would come to be known as “The Philly Sound” of the 1970s.
Linda is the composer of this amazing song. Not long after writing this song, Linda would die of cancer in 1986.
RIP dear Linda, you “crazy diamond”!
Thank you for bringing us together in junior high school.
And a bigger thanks for all of the incredible lyrics and music.
There are times when life defies understanding, the information we want, that we think we should have while experiencing a moment. Understanding may come later, unexpectedly, inconveniently. We may have settled with our current knowing so this revelation can also be obtrusive. But it is undeniable. We recognize a solved mystery revealed, but now we also have long ago adapted ourselves to make up for unanswered questions. We are fine now. But this understanding comes just the same.
Along with this, I think of my parents today. They were so very down to earth, no nonsense. I wanted a little more fluff, like I saw with my friend’s families. But Mother and Dad would have none of that. They were completely aware and not without aspirations but theirs were completely customized to fit their lives and not a carbon copy of anyone else. Eventually Mother and Dad moved our family into a big, stone house on 1/4 acre in a wonderful town. It was the envy of many, including the “fluffy” people. That’s the way that they were, patient and determined in reaching their aspirations.
Mother was highly admired for her leadership, her strength, her drive, her vision. She was unique. She envied no one. She set her sites on a thing and off she went in that direction., fashionably dressed, striking and confident, beautiful. People wanted to know her.
My Father was a quiet giant. He was strong in his beliefs and resolve. When he spoke you listened, you remembered because he wasted no words. He was quite handsome and he adored my Mother. Both strong individuals, my parents, but quite different in their approach in maintaining their strengths.
Looking back now, what has come to mind today, the understanding, is my parents approach to teaching discipline, responsibility, character and integrity; not with so many words, but by the way in which we were left to decide how to behave. They laid down the law and gave us the freedom to follow through. And having garnered our admiration and respect for them, my brothers, my sisters, and I seemed most times to come to the right decision that kept us in line and taught the tough lessons.
My parents were not averse to using the strap. I could tell a couple of stories about that, maybe later. (Spare the rod and spoil the child.). But I realize how intelligent they were. The simple way that they had with teaching and with most everything. They often told me just to look and listen. Don’t ask so many questions. Now this was completely in opposition to what we were taught in school. I often felt that I needed to ask more questions; how I might not be as smart as the ones in class who were constantly asking questions. But as it turns out, my parents were so right in their approach. Most of my questions were answered and in the most significant way. Those answers came during the course of a lesson if I just paid attention. And because of allowing myself the time to receive the answers, they were so much more valuable as the process involved only me. I received the information in the way for my mind to comprehend (we all have our unique way) instead of having to try to understand someone else’s interpretation or significant take on a subject. It was mine and will continue to be mine, foundational, solid, but open to further clarity and substance. I am not purporting that questions should not be asked in class at school, but only if one is inclined to ask, after listening. And at that point in time, more often than not, you may not have questions. I hope this makes sense.
We tend to forget many of the experiences that we’ve had, and easily so as some are truly forgettable, others regrettable, and still others simply because we must get on with our lives. Some events, though we may not think of them when they occur as pertinent or relevant, remain with us somewhere deep inside.
For months I’d been struggling with a perplexing issue which seemed to defy resolution. I was bound on all sides with thinking about it, when suddenly a forgotten memory emerged. Shapes, colors, and details became part of the air around me, dancing in concert to form a story that I would tell in a little book that I would write.
This extraordinary experience of my childhood took place in 1957 in Virginia. As I wrote the words, I felt warm and comforting support for a time that I spent with my grandparents, so very dear to me now. Until the time of writing, I was unaware of how much meaning that summer had brought to my life. How impossible that it was safe in my heart all along! It is a story of love and an ever-growing appreciation for my family. It might well have been entitled , “The Gift”.
Here is an excerpt from my novelette:
Two Little Girls
Chapter 1
As far as I was concerned, summer began with the day my father installed the screens in the windows. Early that morning, Mother would have taken the summer sheers from storage to the clothesline in our backyard. By the afternoon, she swooped up the freshened bundle and brought them back indoors to hang on the rods at the tops of the windows. When the transformation was complete, I’d run from room to room to see the curtains flying on the breeze that raced in through the windows of our big old house. Like a magical invitation to adventures possible only with summer, when one day melted into the next and no one asked about the time, I felt that I could fly too and that anything could happen.
There were 5 children in my family. My brother Lionel was the oldest; my sister Cecilia was next, followed by my sister Rose, then my brother Isaac, and me. We spent summertime totally absorbed in keeping pace with our friends as was our Mother in keeping up with us. She mended our scraped knees, our bruised egos, and the holes in my brothers’ dungarees. I remember lemonade and tuna sandwiches, cotton sun dresses and hair ribbons; the pennies I collected for the corner candy store, and my ankle socks that never stayed up. Summers seemed much longer then when hopscotch and jump rope, hide-and-seek and tag, dress-up and make believe, with my bicycle, my dolls and friends filled the days until supper time. When August finally came around, among the five of us someone would be chosen to vacation with our grandparents in the country. It was in the year 1957 that I was to spend my first summer there.
I’d thought so often about my first trip to the farm. But like the landing of a cascading boulder, my mother’s cheerful delivery of this summer’s plan completely shattered my vision of it. Leaving little room for the way that reality alters things but similar to most events concerning “the children”, I was quite certain of my unvarying reverie. It was always the same. My brothers and sisters are running through a country field with me, very happily and as usual, following close behind. But everything had been arranged and I alone would spend two weeks on the farm that year.
My family had gathered in the living room when Mother made the announcement. But my frustrating lack of enthusiasm was like a call to dinner in emptying the room of everyone and I found myself alone, save for the dog. While I struggled with the concept of being on my own, Spiky jumped onto the couch next to me. Placing his head upon my foot he kept a concerned and watchful eye over my disposition until we both fell asleep.
Later that day, I listened to Dad’s recollections of farm life adventures while Mother prepared supper. As she filled in with the finer points and particulars she’d taken note of my mixed feelings with her knowing smile that always took the sharp edges off of things. “Don’t forget that your cousin Joanna is just about your age and lives close to Grandpa‘s”, she nearly whispered. Then I thought of the pocket inside the little green suitcase as the place where my Jacks would find a perfect fit.
~~~~~~~ Truth is Beauty is Love ~~~~~~
You are amazing. Create something beautiful today!
It is probably not a good idea to anticipate approval from other people.
They will resent you for this.
Harsh but true, they may even have contempt for you.
If it exists at all, your value is a self-determination. If people are drawn to you, they have the assumption that you are self-assured, just as they are self-assured. Otherwise, with the feeling that they may not be able to trust their instincts, they will loathe having taken notice of you.
If you are a mature adult, why would you look toward others to inform you of your value?
Respect that this is self-work and part of what people notice about you, especially when it is missing.
I’m writing this after finding a note to myself written a long time ago about a friend, a beautiful woman. She was never pleased with herself, no matter what she wore or how she styled her hair. I didn’t understand the problem until I noticed her interaction with a man that she wanted to know.
We were out together with another girlfriend. There was an attractive man walking toward where we were sitting. It was clear that he was focused on her. Though she already had his attention, she proceeded with swinging her hair from side to side, and sitting provocatively, more animated, etc.. She was embarrassing and so obvious that I looked toward the guy to see his response to her. He actually looked disappointed as his wide smile softened by the time he reached us. He probably expected a different response, perhaps just a little more reserved. He was polite and generous, ordering drinks all around. He stayed long enough to finish his drink and make a graceful exit back to his friends.
She was one of my best friends. And I remember that she had a terrible relationship with her father. He was never pleased with anything that she did. He was cold and critical.
Finding and reading this note to myself from so long ago, I think of how my dad was with me. He has been gone for a long time now. Though I have never given any thought about our relationship in comparison to my friend’s with her father, I think of it now.
May dad was a quiet man, so it is easy to remember the things that he said, and the consistent and reliable support that he was for me. Being the last of six children, it seems to me now that my father was aware of how I could get lost in the crowd of our family. He let me know that he could see me. One of my favorite memories is that at the end of the week on Friday evenings, so that I wouldn’t miss his arrival, I colored in my coloring book on the living room floor, waiting for him to return home from work. He’d walk in and without stopping or saying a word, he’d toss a Clark bar onto my coloring book. This was the rare thing as there were no extras in our family of 9.
My father was a busy and hard-working man with a lot of responsibilities to our family. And he also made time to let me know that noticed me. Just between the two of us, that Clark bar was a powerful gesture. It is an amazing thing that thinking about those times, I can still feel how I felt then, when I was 6 years old. My father always reminded me of how I could become whatever I could imagine. He said that often.
I don’t think my girlfriend got that message about herself.
My wish is that those of us who feel empty or unseen by the world could realize that we are amazing, every one of us is an amazing human being.
Parents provide this awareness through their love for us, but sometimes they themselves are also injured in the same way, by their parents. They don’t know how even if they want to be a better parent for their children. Unfortunately, feeling inadequate to give what the child is so needing, a parent’s reaction to this may be criticism and ridicule, for what they didn’t realize was missing in themselves. It is a desperate and harmful reaction for sure. Both the child and the parent are at a loss for understanding and both experience pain and longing.
But the truth is that we are made in His image, in the image of God, The Creator. If we believe this, then we can heal ourselves and we can forgive others. With this knowing, we can repair our hearts and love ourselves and those that have hurt us.
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
Genesis 1:27
Everyone of us is beautiful and amazing, every one.
charondiane 
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