A LOVE STORY

How She Could Sing the Wildwood Flower. This is my new favorite song, by Emmylou Harris. It’s a love story, and no matter how often I say I don’t believe in love, I continue to notice those moments when I’m swept away by a love story. This story shares its themes with almost every other. A man falls for a woman, they live happily together for a while, but he is the driven type and doesn’t pay her enough attention. She gets lonely and leaves. He regrets. The love lives on in his memory, and in her song.

My favorite line in the song: “He’d bring her there to be his bride/ Where they would live and work together side by side.” The idea of being with a man with whom I could stand side-by-side, and a man who wants the same, evokes my every romantic fantasy. Of course, I fall for the part of the story where happily-ever-after seems possible, probable, given even. And the song might not rank among my favorites of the day if it weren’t about the eventual loss of this ideal. There is, admittedly, something romantic for me in the difficulty of the stories of love that awaken my soul.

I’m searching for a real life love story. One in which the love lasts. Transforms, for sure, but remains. I have yet to find one, and this leaves me wondering why it is so rare. Why so difficult? We get in our own way over and over again and love leaves us there. Even as a part of us always yearns for love of the lasting kind.

I once wrote about how love only exists in moments. And “lasting love” is only a series of those moments strung together. I continue to think this might be accurate. Lasting, romantic love is a fantasy. The truth of love can only exist if we renew our commitment to be open again and again and again; moment after moment after moment; which may be close to impossible for all human beings who are not the Dalai Lama. So, for now, I am trying to appreciate the sporadic moments, even as I desperately wish they were strung together more closely and with an individual whom I might live and work side-by-side.

This past week I experienced love when I went to pick up an order at a print shop. It was a large, warehouse type of place. There were about five guys working there, together, side-by-side, each looking like they had just rolled out of bed. And in some strange way, each looking like they loved the others. In response, I instantly “fell” for each and every one of them. I’m not sure why. Nor does it matter. The feeling I had was unmistakably love. So, whereas I will not stop searching for the unattainable love stories sung by the likes of Emmylou Harris, I will also search for these more isolated moments, which in themselves tell a love story of sorts.