Seattle, Washington - Friday, February 19, 2010

Where have I been? What happened to me?
Well, for one thing, there was a four-day bout with the explosive kind of gut- bug assault that keeps one very still and quiet and anxious and not far from the bathroom. Being one of the chicken-hearted who had rather have a root canal than throw up, it was a tense and exhausting time.
Also there were two weeks of being kept inside by steady rain, fog, and cold that invited baleful stares into the gloom but not much creativity.
And helping a friend hang a gallery show of paintings leaves one limp with the tension of making aesthetic decisions and coming to consensus on whether a piece is really level or not.
Finally, getting the mostly negative returns on the manuscript of a new novel from twenty readers was discouraging.
A lumpy stretch.
Mental and physical dormancy was the result.
One can crawl in a hole or return to the fray of life.
And today was clear and sunny and warm. An afternoon out in the yard urging on the growing things makes my own juices rise and flow again.
Onward!

HERE CAME . . . THERE WENT . . . LOVE

So we have this annual holiday represented by a naked, winged adolescent boy armed with bow and arrow, unreliable judgment, and a vindictive nature. Odd, when you think about it.

It is a tribute to human hopefulness that we continue to have such high and affirmative expectations of the activities of good old Cupid.

The Valentine’s Weekend of Love reminded me of an experience on the island of Bali a couple of winters ago. I searched a traveler’s bookshop for something to read in English, finding only mildewed paperback fiction in the horror, suspense, and crime genres. (Why do people travel to beautiful places to get away from it all and turn to evil and terror for succor? Beats me.)

The only exception I could find was a book of the love poetry of Rumi.
This was a used book - underlined and annotated by several previous readers. The book was therefore deeply discounted in price. But getting an insight into the views of others makes a book more valuable and interesting to me. And I had never read Rumi before.

Knowing he is one of the most respected writers on the subject ever, I spent a month slowly working my way through pages extolling the mysteries of ecstatic love, romantic love, and soul-fulfilling love.
Heavily underlined. Many exclamation points. For example:

“I open and fill with love, and what is not love evaporates.” ! ! ! !

To tell you the truth it was like eating my way through a magnum size box of cream-filled chocolates. Dyspeptic. Too much of a good thing, perhaps.

And then I came to the end pages, where someone had added some anti-dotal thoughts:

“The truth is that Eros now carries a sharp switchblade knife,
and knows how to use it. You never see it coming. And it hurts so good when you bleed. Click.”

“Leonard Cohen is what became of Cupid when he grew old.”

“Love is an incurable disease. It’s an epidemic.”

And someone else had added a page drawn up to look like a Wanted poster.
There was a drawing of the head of a young man.
Underneath, these words:

“LOST - MY TRUE LOVE
A beautiful young man. Brown curly hair, green eyes, freckles.
Tall, slender, athletic, talented, independent. Drives a yellow Ducati motorcycle, and wears a leopard-skin jacket.
If you see him, tell him Anna misses him and is still looking for him.
When he smiles in memory of me, kick him in the groin as hard as you can.”