A Love Story

Well, Valentine’s Day is upon us.

If these current times of ours have given us anything of lasting value, it seems, for me, to come down to this:

All of us are, or should be, searching for deeper meaning in our lives. Who are we and what’s to become of us? Some of the more fatalistic of us might be tempted to say “why bother?”. We have no control over the present or indeed the future. For me, that is not about living. I sense deeply that our lives do have purpose, individually and as communities of caring people. Others may simply say simplistic things such as “be happy” or find your most successful self.

OK, let’s start somewhat on a higher plane. The Beatles are famous for saying “All You Need Is Love”. But that begs the big question, does it not?

What indeed IS love?

We have plenty of sources to consult. Poets and songwriters have been besotted with the idea since language came into being. (Oh, I know, our ancestors in their caves must have thought about that special feeling too! Not to mention our precious dogs and cats). The book of Corinthians spends much time suggesting its qualities from the highest authority. 

—An aside and a caution. I am well aware when the subject of “love” comes up, it is likely to trigger some strong emotions. So, here is my personal mantra. Love and hate are truly special words. One should try to avoid overuse. They should be reserved for deeply thought-out conclusions and declarations. Try your best not to throw them around cavalierly. It diminishes their value and demeans their use. I might like chocolate chip cookies, but I certainly do not “love” them. End virtue lesson.

Since I have little way of choosing among the universe of all these lofty ideas, I regularly turn to the so-called “universal language” of music, one of my passions. Let’s begin with romance. Here are some words sung by one of the very fine voices of the Seventies, Karen Carpenter:

“Love, look at the two of us
Strangers in many ways
We've got a lifetime to share
So much to say
And as we go from day
…
Let's take a lifetime to say
I knew you well
For only time will tell us so
And love may grow
For all we know”

So ephemeral. So hopeful. It is a wonderful thing, yet it recognizes the fragility that each of us experiences when we find even the “perfect” match. Is this all we really need?

It is, without doubt, a beautiful song and sentiment, but…let’s take a deeper glance. As many of us know from experience, many love stories fail to fulfill the promises they seem to offer. That leaves a lot of time to fill and a whole lot of “life” in between.

Does any kind of “love” fill all our needs as the famous trio sang? But if love is the panacea, if the deity is love, or some force that fills the vastness of the universe and has existed since the moment of “creation”, how do we know, how do we take it inside, allow it to grow and nourish us and our families and friends, and use it to save a broken world?

The Carpenter’s song “For All I know” hints at a resolution of the big question. Love may grow, which means it exists, but it also must be nourished and cared for. In this, whether I can name it or not, lies the source of my hope for all of us. 

Not all songwriters are created equal (but some are created “more equally” than others). One more song might help to find an answer to our big question. I hold in very high esteem a composer whom you may not know , Kate Wolf. She left us much too early in the middle of the eighties, just as our appreciation of her talents was rising. This song has been a favorite since I heard it covered in a very small, intimate music venue in Black Mountain NC. David Wilcox closed with it in almost all of his concerts, for good reason. Some lyrics will tell part of the story.

 “Kind friends all gathered 'round, there's something I would say:
That what brings us together here has blessed us all today.
Love has made a circle that holds us all inside.
Where strangers are as family, loneliness can't hide.

You must give yourself to love if love is what you're after;
Open up your hearts to the tears and laughter
And give yourself to love, give yourself to love.

Love is born in fire; it's planted like a seed.
Love can't give you everything, but it gives you what you need.
And love comes when you're ready, love comes when you're afraid;
It'll be your greatest teacher, the best friend you have made.” - Kate Wolf

On cold winter nights all of us left Wilcox’s concerts better able to face what life was throwing our way and even better to face the dawn. As you can see, I am still seeking answers to life’s more elusive questions. But music helps, and the words of our great writers enrich, and the forests, mountains, streams, and sandy beaches speak to us also. 

Kate Wolf died in her forties, half a life ahead. Whenever an artist of great promise leaves us I cannot help wondering what they still had to give. But let’s not allow ourselves to look only in high places. I have a very small circle of friends and many more lovely acquaintances and a deep and abiding partnership with a woman of substance and radiance. Look around you and notice the “circle”. Be the force that draws them together and count yourself fortunate. But know that they have questions and insecurities of their own—listen to their stories. Offer yourself if they express needs or simply stand ready. “He also serves who only stands and waits”.

If one wants to get mystical they could hardly do better than one of the great naturalists of the twentieth century Loren Eiseley. A scientist of the first order, he was also filled with wonder about his experiences.  Listen to his beautiful idea about love and life.

“It was the humans who nourished the highest in their nature by means of love, who lived with such exquisite tenderness for life in all of its expressions, that propelled our species from the caves to the cathedrals, from savagery to sonnets.” 

Some of them, a mere handful in any generation perhaps, loved — they loved the animals about them, the song of the wind, the soft voices of women. On the flat surfaces of cave walls the three dimensions of the outside world took animal shape and form. Here — not with the ax, not with the bow — humans fumbled at the door of his true kingdom. Here, hidden in times of trouble behind silent brows, against the man with the flint, waited St. Francis of the birds — the lovers, the men who are still forced to walk warily among their kind.

“It was here that I came to know the final phase of love in the mind of man — the phase beyond the evolutionists’ meager concentration upon survival.

Here I no longer cared about survival — I merely loved. And the love was meaningless, as the harsh Victorian Darwinists would have understood it or even, equally, those harsh modern materialists…..

I felt, sitting in that desolate spot upon my whiskey crate, a love without issue, tenuous, almost disembodied. It was a love for an old gull, for wild dogs playing in the surf, for a hermit crab in an abandoned shell. It was a love that had been growing through the unthinking demands of childhood, through the pains and rapture of adult desire. Now it was breaking free, at last, of my worn body, still containing but passing beyond those other loves.”

 —Loren Eiseley (author of an essential book, The Immense Journey. It must be in your essential life library)

All right. Where is this going? I just wanted to tease you with some semantics. It should be clear that I lack a definitive answer to my initial question of “what is love”. After all, this piece should simply be celebrating the holiday. So, I will finish with a couple of intriguing  musical thoughts, anchored by a bit of hope. First, an inspired idea that once love has shrouded the lives of two people, it might just last forever.

“All my plans, keep fallin' through
All my plans depend on you
Depend on you to help them grow
I love you and that's all I know

When the singer's gone
Let the song go on
It's a fine line between the darkness and the dawn
You say in the darkest night there's a light beyond

I love you and that’s all I know”

—Jimmy Webb

It is mutuality that makes great loves. When two become “we” and the light of each other’s existence (even in dark times). 

What if love ends? In the moment of fresh loss it can often feel like life is over. But here is a song of hope to carry with you if you have, perhaps, loved and lost.

”Well, I have climbed to lover's lane
I felt the joy, I felt the pain
Asking for another's soul
Thinking they could make me whole

Now I heard a voice from deep inside

Saying you're not blamed for love you tried
Oh, you may think that love takes two
But love's a gift from you to you

 And I have tried without ceasing
To give love without regret
I know love's not through with me yet

Can you hold a place within your breast
For someone you've never met?
Then love's not through with you
I said love's not through with me
I know love's not through with us yet”

—Darrell Scott

Now, I hope you agree that this is a very fine song for Valentine’s Day. Take it with you now — and for “Down the Road.” May we each hold a quiet place within our hearts for what is still forming. I, for one, am trusting that love is not through with us yet.

With affection,
Clay