What is love?
I fell in love with a man who looked like “he walked out of a Patagonia ad†who spoke in riddles and confused me just enough to take a magic carpet ride with him and he says he loves me, but is that love? Before my man spoke in absolutes and did not bend to meet me but when I left he cracked and he says he loves me still – is that love? – the memories fade of men before, back to a man who loved me through several lives then went nuts and committed himself – but not before he broke my heart many times over – was that love? – who are these people who mate like geese – I want love that feels like fire being put out with gasoline or do I? – is that love? – if I love a man because everyday he is here and that is how he delivers, but he forgets I am a woman who wants posies or how much Splenda sweetens my decaf or I come first – is that love? – if I love a man who makes my hand shake when I put lipstick on to meet him, who unsettles me just a little, and asks what else he can do for me, is that love? Sometime in the Pleistocene era I loved a man who would kill for me – my dad died in ‘85 of a massive heart attack – heart exploded – he loved so intensely and I loved him back – a man friend exclaimed as we chatted by the fire in his high Sierra cabin that isn’t love, Rachel – but it is love, isn’t it? – big, volatile and fiery love – too many girlfriends have told me they pine for but don’t have a love like that – a nation of women who want love.
I sat around a table last night and was surrounded by men – one brought up his mother in a way that made me cock my head and listen. I wondered how each of their mothers had damaged each and every one of them in their own peculiar way. I thought about how love that jumps off the pages of a novel is so very different from the love that lives in the house next door. My mother had a dream my father was alive the other day and she woke up relieved to know it was a dream. Was that love?