By Emily Rosen

ERosen424@aol.com

www.emilyrosen424.com

Was it the red rocks? Was it the New Age-ism surrounding us? Was it our history? Was it the place where we stayed? Was it our mutual yen to get away? Was it the incredible freedom to be our totally uncensored selves? Or was it a mish-mash of all the above? Who cares! What it was was our version of five days of perfection.

The last time I saw Ivy, almost 30 years ago, we had tripped cross country together when she decided to move to California to be near her parents, after her live-in relationship with my son had ended – amicably. (Neither has since married – happily.) When we parted, we promised each other a version of a “do over,” when she reached the age that I was then (we’re 30 years apart). We’ve kept in touch, though unseen. Good people keep promises, if good luck be with them.

We met at the Phoenix airport, her salt and pepper hair braided Indian style slung over her left shoulder and rippling to her waist. Yep! That was Ivy. And for all the incessant picture taking that we did, no one was there for the moment we first spotted each other and hugged like the long lost souls that we were.

With apologies to Thomas Wolfe, you can go home again, or that is to say, you can recapture the bliss of those long ago moments. Well, we could, and did. Ivy, the artist/yoga-teacher/health food specialist/positive-energy-seeker, was the official log-burner on chilly nights at our temporary home at the Oak Creek Terrace Resort in Sedona. There we warmed ourselves by the fireplace and splashed in the double Jacuzzi, swung on the double swings on the top terrace in the morning sun, and toppled a few times in the double hammocks as we stared mesmerized at the creek waters hissing in speedy movement across the rocks at the lower terrace. We giggled a lot, too.

But we came for the reds and managed to find them while walking and hiking trails daily that spirited us to heights we couldn’t believe possible. Me … an ol’ lady, dragging up those trails. Wow! And one day we spent on a flat mesa, way high up, with not a soul in sight, hugged by Cathedral Rock, or was it Bell Rock? Chimney Rock? Thunder Mountain? Whichever one, it felt cozy and protected, emitting vibes of harmony and peace … oh, yes, love, too.

A hike on the path to the Buddhist Stupa in Peace Park, where we each engaged in our own style of meditation, topped off that day of soulfulness as the rains burst out of the clouds just as we closed the doors to the car. “Car-ma” indeed.

There were the eat places, greens and beans and soy in a myriad of iterations, and, once, a sneaked-in hunk of bison for the abs and brains, in garden settings with obsequious monk-like staff And oh, BTW, Ivy had sworn off liquor and I don’t drink alone, so no booze.

So throw away your anti-depressants, say good-bye to your shrink, book your flight to Sedona, and hide the TV remote when you get there. If you’re not smothered in constant bliss during your stay, I will eat your boarding pass.

As for Ivy, same time next year. I don’t have 30 more in me.

By Emily Rosen

ERosen424@aol.com

www.emilyrosen424.com

It’s “Love-Time” again, so get your pen and paper and prepare to take a short, simple quiz.

Here it goes: Finish the following sentence: “Love is ….”

Expand on your answer as you see fit and e-mail your response to me (See email address above). With your permission, I will include it in my next column, or in next year’s LOVE column, depending on how many responses I get.

And, yes, there are all kinds of love, and infinite degrees of intensity that the feeling engenders, and that’s what makes the subject an intriguing study, as well as a great dinner-party go-around at the table.

The big secret is that “real love” needs to begin with self – non narcissistic, “whole- self” – love. If that does not exist, I know some “shrinks” I could recommend. You cannot love someone else if you don’t truly love yourself.

I am always fascinated by the variety of ideas people express on the subject, all of them, no doubt, reflections of their personal experiences. Those of us who are engaged in pursuing self-awareness (or mindfulness, or a high level of consciousness) agree that the experience of “love” – all kinds – is the ultimate goal of human achievement, a concept which is the root thesis of most religions.

Love: Follow it and see the patterns change. It is like a piece of dough that begins with one ingredient and gets added to, reduced, blended, rolled, flattened and shaped. It is wiggling, bouncy, euphoric and constrained. It reaches out and pulls back. It is gentle and it is violent, giving and demanding. It is lustful and phlegmatic. It is the sustenance of the world and yet its chemistry can be venomous. It is a spot of mercury, darting, volatile, fusing and breaking into bits and pieces. It is open and closed, a release and a prison. It is agony and glory, darkness and sunlight, distance and touch … and, mostly, joyous.

As one who has experienced the entire range of love-feelings – and as one who has advanced in chronological years – it is pure happiness to report on “love” in the senior years. Some people call it “cute,” condescending to the belief of youth that those feelings experienced during the teenaged and early 20s and 30s cannot be duplicated many decades hence. Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! (I joyously report.) And thus – another celebration of Happy Valentine’s Day.

Here are two of several legends about Valentine’s Day: Valentine, a Roman priest, was killed because he attempted to help Christians escape from a Roman prison as they were being tortured and beaten there. Yet another popular version of the legend states that while in prison Valentine, or Valentinius, fell in love with the jailer’s daughter who visited him during confinement. Before his death, Valentine wrote a farewell letter to his sweetheart from the jail and signed “From your Valentine.” The expression became quite popular amongst the love struck and is still very much in vogue.

So here’s to the good St. Valentine, may his love-aura be spread – and may you live in lovingness all the days up to and beyond the 14th.

Crabby Jacks, at 1015 S.  Federal, in Deerfield Beach,  is the second restaurant this month in Rivertowne Square shopping center at SW 10th and Federal to have a fire.

People cruising by Sunday morning watched as it was burning down between 6:40 and 7:00 a.m. before someone finally called the fire in. Deerfield started rolling on the call at 7 a.m. and quickly called for back up from Pompano and Ft. Lauderdale.

There was a rumor going around town that maybe there was a “firebug” in the area because of a fire at Peking Tokyo Buffet on Aug. 12, which is still closed, less than a 1000 feet from Crabby Jack’s. That fire was a result of grease build up on and around the grill so when the employee fired it up there was a flash fire.

Quitoni from Deerfield fire said it took about 30 minutes to whack down the initial blaze.  BSO cleared out Denny’s next door because it was so hot.  Onlookers were coming by all day. The state Fire Marshall is investigating the fire and we should have an answer soon.

We will have the complete story in our Sept 1 issue of the Observer. To watch video of the Peking Tokyo Buffet fire on Aug 12 and the Crabby Jack’s fire go to ObserverTV and click on” latest videos”

PHOTO BY JEFF GRAVES