360 Pounds of Tears

360 Pounds of Tears-I came up with this title probably around twenty-five years ago. I have written poetry throughout my life, but nothing really serious. A moment would happen and then I would write it down. I wrote the poem "360 Pounds of Tears." Unfortunately, I lost it, but basically, it was about the fear and pain of being heavy and how the world looked at me-the time I was in the store and two little girls looked at me and said how fat I was or the time I was walking down the street of Santa Monica and some guys screaming by in their car and saying, "Hey, fatso!" So . . . it started with that. Of recent, I fell in love for the first time in my life after thirty or forty years at the age of fifty-four. We got engaged . . . and it ended . . . and the heartache of that is why I started writing. Basically, I woke up one day and heard a voice . . . sounds of sorry, not of command. And I just listened to my inner voice, and I started writing. And I would write and I would write, and actually, after I would read it, I didn't know who really wrote it, even though I knew it was me. So it has basically been a healing process, tapping into something . . . I said something to my brother . . . He said, "I think you got something here . . ." So I just keep on writing or listening, and when the moment happens, I put it down on paper. I would basically summarize the book as a connection with God, life, the unknown, hurt, pain, joy, acceptance, and most of all, love . . . I believe that there are so many forms of love, and I think that everything we do is for love . . . Everything we do . . . So that is basically why I wrote the book of poems . . . 360 Pounds of Tears.