Love, a romance

Love, a romance

 That will be the title of my upcoming book. This is just a quick outline, so I can get it off my chest. 

A friend once gave me a book on love as a Christmas gift, with the inscription, "To Mary, who is in love with the idea of being in love." This is true. I have always been in love with love. And I bet I could benefit others with this tragic disposition. (If being romantic and passionate is tragic, why the hell is that?)

The hard sexy bodies running down the major and side streets of Atlanta are hard to miss. They are on every road. This one guy I saw was like a perfect Roman sculpture. I don't even think the Romans had bods like this guy. I mean perfect, and shining like a glossy jewel in the hot Georgia sun. 

I have been trying to come up with new material for this book idea. I decided a couple of months ago I was the perfect person to write a new hit book on finding love, one of the ones everyone reads and it actually helps them. I know a lot about love. I've been madly in love maybe 70+ times. 

Just kidding. I think maybe once or twice. And I had a deep, profound love for my ex, who has passed away. I never thought I was "in love" with him, but the love we shared was deeper still. (I don't shutter at this comment, I am so past being "in love")

Which brings me to my next point, I had the idea that I would learn a little about the different kinds of love, ie eros, la di da, I can't think of any of them. I was going to write an epic masterpiece of a love book, but realized that hey, there are many out there writing epic masterpieces, and I usually can't get through the first few pages of them. So I'll have to start small in order to gain a better perspective, and get an idea of why these books are intolerable. Many, many books with well meaning intentions and probably rife with impeccable advice are like watching paint dry.

So back to the sexy bodies. I feel pressure to reexamine my sexuality in the modern era. Not because I stray from the straight, I am very straight. But there's a sort of vile sterileness imposed on straight people, I feel, that asks them to ignore impulses like they're St. Thomas Aquinas during his famous trial with the prostitute. He won the war. But I don't feel the need to over exert myself when it comes to passing thoughts. They should pass by with a seasoned pleasure, like fallen leaves adrift on a soft, clear stream. Anyway, when I see a half naked god-like man running down the road, it doesn't escape me. But then, it led me to my chapter on sex. It opened that can of worms. You will see what I mean.

Really, I was considering the extracurriculars in the bedroom, and thinking how mostly base they are. Not too excitable in my opinion. I may just be boring. But then, I thought of how either you must really, really like someone to not find these things extremely off putting, or else there's that greek god of a person in front of you, and you feel herculean sexual prowess. There's a line in When Harry Met Sally when Sally is talking about her relationship with her ex, and she is explaining to Harry why her and her ex decided they weren't ready to have kids. They could fly to France on a moments notice, she said. Or, they could have sex in the kitchen floor without fear of the kids walking in, ...  and he asks her about the sex on the floor, Harry does, cause that's who Harry is, and then she says, they never did, it was just this cold hard Mexican-ceramic tile. 

And I wondered about that. The love making between the herculean stallion and the cold hard body. Or how the sex is ever any better no matter how you dress it up. It seems like, with love making, there ought to be a little love involved. No hard body is going to make what's cheap any more lush. Its just a rush. You can get that anywhere, anytime. I'm pretty sure.

Which was going to be a whole chapter on sex. Sex is pretty great, and again, I don't down play it's importance. I think having a healthy and meaningful sex life can be one of the great privileges of living. I don't want to go all spiritual up in here, but there probably isn't anything profoundly appealing about sex in the afterlife. Sex and intimacy can help us to keep up with our partners when life, as it tends to do, starts pulling us in different directions.

That's why cheap isn't working. We need to know that sex isn't cheap, it is fantastic. Like anything fantastic, we should care for it.

I was trying to come up with analogies for how to care for and cultivate a meaningful sex life. Gardening came up. Whatever the thing is that needs to be cared for and tended, a nice car or home, something you appreciate and want to flourish. I am going to have to look now and see how many people are out there online, tending their sex lives like master gardeners. (No hoe jokes here)

Which brings us full circle back to love.

There will be a chapter on creating your ideal love. It will discuss the problem of unreciprictated love, also know as unrequitted love, there are other terms as well, seems a pretty good topic to have created so many snazzy words. I have found that when I am interested in someone and it is a figment of my imagination, it is just that. An imaginary image of something I wish were tangible. The problem with unrequitted love is in the eye of the beholder.  I have yet to become so in love with an actual person as to find myself lost in love with them and not comfortable with it in such a way as if it were a very nice painting, or a favorite song. Or a book you borrow, you can return it to its shelf. 

The lovely part about aging is that you experience life fully enough so that all those youthful sureties and emotional trappings are relinquished. What a relief it is to let go. I found in anger as well as desperate love that it is our own fear of losing ourselves and of the embarrassment of it all that makes the experience linger. A terrible temper is as cyclical as its perpetrator allows it to be. And as for unrequited love, the sorrow and desperation should not be.  Most of what we desire from others that we aren't receiving comes from within. It is actually a sort of beautiful thing. I wish I could tell romantic and passionate people how much of what we fantasize about people we love is much of who we are, and that all the beauty and romance is within ourselves. It helps, you know, to know that the beauty you are longing for is already in your possession.

That's really a good starting point. Here I am, you could say. I love gentleness, beauty, laughter, genuine emotion. 

And after cultivating yourself, you can realize that you are deserving of all that you desire. 

And it is true what they say, there are plenty of fish in this great sea. Some with bodies like gods.

Love, defined. In many cultures. Love, simple and true. Love, it is my next big thing.