What I’ve learned about LOVE

I’ve written a new novel entitled By Chance that tells the story of a divorced, middle-aged woman who regrets that true and lasting love has eluded her. But as she reconsiders her past choices and missed opportunities, she is surprised by a discovery that changes the way she looks at her life.

For a long time now, I’ve had the same regret. (Funny how authors relate so well to their protagonists! 😉 ) My unfulfilled wish in this lifetime is that I didn’t fall in love in my youth with a man I’d grow to love even more as we aged together.

My 12-year marriage ended in divorce when I was in my mid-40s. After that, I was a single mother for 10 years. I have a wonderful son, who has been the light of my life since his birth in 1989. I had so hoped when he was born that we’d be a happy family making wonderful memories for many, many years to come. But that didn’t happen.

When my son went off to college 10 years ago, I had to re-invent my life. Alone. I sold my house — escrow closed on September 11, 2008, five days before Lehman Brothers failed, triggering the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression. I sat on a plane flying to Rome two days later, reading the dire newspaper headlines in Italian. When I filled out the embarkation card on that flight, I didn’t know what to write on the line that asked for my home address. I had no home. But I secretly felt relieved. I had sold my house in the nick of time, and with that came great freedom.

In the past 10 years, I’ve moved my tent a bit — three times to Florence, Italy; once to Edinburgh, Scotland; and most recently to Giverny, France. Between some of those moves, I’ve returned to home base in Pasadena, California, where I enjoy spending time with my son, hanging out with friends, and soaking up the southern California sunshine.

One friend recently told me she thought I was “crazy” to choose this vagabond life. True, I don’t have the trappings and comforts of American living — a big house, cars in the garage, a kitchen with outsized appliances. But I feel unencumbered. I’ve learned to travel light and make all the small spaces where I’ve lived HOME. There’s a valuable lesson in that.

Many friends envy my life. I hear all the time, You’re living the dream. It’s not the fairytale that it might seem (living as a foreigner in distant lands isn’t easy), but it is sometimes dream-like. My roamings have taken me to incredible places. In my new life in Giverny, I feel immersed in beauty at every turn. I understand why Claude Monet spent the last half of his life here and often feel like I’m in one of his paintings. There are moments when I think that if I touched the petals of the flowers, paint would come off on my fingers.

What brought me to Giverny was LOVE. Not only my love of this place, but the love of a man whom I adore. We met a few years ago, during one of my visits here. And last fall, our friendship took a romantic turn. A story for another day — or book! 😉

I’ve been single for 20 years. I’ve had a number of relationships since my divorce, including several travel romances along the way, but nothing lasted. Until now. In my far-flung wanderings, I’ve longed to turn to someone I love and say, Isn’t this wonderful? I now have that someone.

I’ve come to realize a few things about love. It takes many forms — not all of them wonderful. Love can tear your heart apart. It can drive you to jealousy and suspicion. It can make you possessive and demanding. It can cause you to say and do hurtful things. Over time, the pain of all this can close off your heart altogether.

The lesson I’ve personally learned about love: In its best form, love brings out the best in me and my partner. It brings side-splitting laughter, profound tenderness, a happy tear that springs from the corner of the eye, a flip of my heart when I hear him come through the door.

When I started writing By Chance, I was still wondering if I’d ever find true love again. Much of the story is fiction, but some of it is as true as I remember it. And those memories are still so clear, after all these years. If you recognize yourself in this story (I’ve changed names and personal details), please know that you’re part of an important realization that comes to the lovelorn protagonist at the end of the book. She and I are grateful to you.

The couple pictured on the book’s cover are my parents on their wedding day: My dad’s first act of gallantry as a married man was catching my mom as she stumbled on the stairs. The name of the photographer has vanished with time. But I’m thankful to him or her for capturing this moment of their first steps together as a married couple. Love can be fraught with missteps, but my parents’ journey together lasted 63 years and inspired much of this book.

I’ve dedicated this novel to “those longing for love, with the hope that, just by chance, the wonder and mystery of it will find you — and delight you — when you least expect it.”

For centuries, poets and lyricists have waxed rhapsodic about LOVE. It changes everything, makes the world go round. It’s like a red, red rose, thorns and all.

As I enjoy new-found love, this Shakespeare sonnet speaks to my heart:

Of all my loves this is the first and last
That in the autumn of my years has grown,
A secret fern, a violet in the grass,
A final leaf where all the rest are gone.
Would that I could give all and more, my life,
My world, my thoughts, my arms, my breath, my future,
My love eternal, endless, infinite, yet brief,
As all loves are and hopes, though they endure.
You are my sun and stars, my night, my day,
My seasons, summer, winter, my sweet spring,
My autumn song, the church in which I pray,
My land and ocean, all that the earth can bring
Of glory and of sustenance, all that might be divine,
My alpha and my omega, and all that was ever mine.