"What is This Thing Called Love?"

Cole Porter, again, continuing the set, and another tune that I hadn't been familiar with before now. It's an intriguing little thing, and I was glad to have the information in the introduction, which says that Cole Porter wrote this after being inspired by 'native chants in Marrakesh, Morocco'. It does have an interesting modal, half-stepping melody. Nice stuff, and with a great blues riff going underneath, a great match.

I've been distracted, of late, reading 'The Pilot's Wife', by Anita Shreve (and I can blame this entirely on my almost-for-all-purposes-sister-in-law, Amy). She had heard that reading it made women sure that their husbands were cheating on them. Well, so far, that's not true, though I find the mystery of what this woman's late husband had been up to fairly gripping. But it does make me ask questions about what love is, and what happens to relationships over time. All things considered, I haven't been with my husband that long. I've known him now for eleven years, and we've been married a bit over seven years. I wonder what ten years of marriage would feel like, or twenty, or fifty. Things will change, that's the only guarantee. I think I worry sometimes a little too much about what those changes will be; since I also know that they won't happen over night, for the most part, I'll have time to adjust to things. The ebbs and flows of our daily life also might be reflected in the larger whole, I suspect. All I can do is keep my priorities in mental view (love, balance, presense in the moment, appreciation, self-care), and trust that I will survive whatever the future of our love will bring.

But I keep asking questions: why this? why can't that part be better? what's happening here? is this good, or bad, or what? what am I not seeing clearly? I don't always ask these questions aloud. My therapist has mentioned one of what may be my fatal flaws: I try to fix the relationship, whatever relationship, without involving the other person. Not the best plan, trust me, and I struggle with it. Because I care so much about those I love, and desire intimacy with them so much, and it is such a goal and focus for me--I make this mistake over and over again. I'm sure it also has lots to do with being an oldest child, and wanting to be responsible, and being a woman and mother as well.

What is this thing called love? I don't know, totally, and that's the final bit of data for me: it is forever a mystery, a question mark, unique in every different place that it grows. I am interested in answers about the definition of love, but I don't expect to get to the definitive and final end game. And there are plenty of other questions besides where I'm very happy to let the mystery be: death, divinity, why people voted for Bush, etc. Not that I don't crawl all over the mystery, peering in cracks and admiring my reflection, but I don't expect to find any one true path to the heart of it all.

My life will never be dull or boring, if I continue asking, and seeking. And it is certainly never dull with my husband around, either.