How to Make Love Stay?
Present Sense № 14
Welcome to Present Sense – a weekend curation for Paid Subscribers – with 7 sensory recommendations: something to SEE, HEAR, SMELL, TASTE, TOUCH, BALANCE and ENVISION. Each edition also includes an audio guided meditation.
Even though I’m a romantic at heart, I’ve never participated in Valentine’s Day. It always felt like a commercialized and performative holiday, fueled by Hallmark cards and heart-shaped chocolates. Luckily, my partner agrees and finds it strange to sit in a restaurant, surrounded by couples staging romance.
But we do celebrate Love, on our own calendar. We have dates that hold meaning for us, like the night we met, the day we got married, etc. At the end of this month, we’ll be toasting 10 years together.
As that big marker approaches, I’ve been contemplating the eternal question of ‘How To Make Love Stay?’
It’s the central premise in Tom Robbins’ book ‘Still Life with Woodpecker.’ Through a fantastical tale, he wrestles with the dilemma of how to make love stay – beyond the initial butterflies and the excitement of a new passion. How can love continue to show up, amongst the bills to pay, the dishes to wash, the mundanities we face daily?
Tom Robbins, in his signature whimsical outlook, offers a few suggestions:
“Who knows how to make love stay?
1. Tell love you are going to Junior's Deli on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn to pick up a cheesecake, and if loves stays, it can have half. It will stay.
2. Tell love you want a momento of it and obtain a lock of its hair. Burn the hair in a dime-store incense burner with yin/yang symbols on three sides. Face southwest. Talk fast over the burning hair in a convincingly exotic language. Remove the ashes of the burnt hair and use them to paint a moustache on your face. Find love. Tell it you are someone new. It will stay.
3. Wake love up in the middle of the night. Tell it the world is on fire. Dash to the bedroom window and pee out of it. Casually return to bed and assure love that everything is going to be all right. Fall asleep. Love will be there in the morning.”
The first suggestion was bittersweet to read. My parents lived in Brooklyn, not far from Junior’s on Flatbush. When they divorced, my mother and I moved to France. One of the things she misses most from her New York days is Junior’s cheesecake. But it wasn’t enough to make love stay.
Their tale is one shared by so many. In fact, almost half of marriages in the US end in divorce. And that number doesn’t account for the many relationships where love is absent, warped, or conditional.
So I count myself amongst the very lucky, where love has not only stayed, but grown year after year. I can’t claim to know the secret, but a decade of love has taught me a few lessons. They often say that marriage takes work, but I believe most of the work entails taking an honest look at ourselves.
Love acts as a mirror – exposing our qualities, as well as our flaws. The first stages of romance tend to accentuate the best parts of ourselves. Or more often, the picture we project onto the other. But eventually, less desirable traits are revealed. When we don’t like what’s reflected back, it’s easy to blame the other. We can choose to look away, or even shatter the mirror altogether. But the next relationship is bound to expose the cracks, yet again. Love can withstand our humanity – but can we?
Love is an endless lesson in self-discovery. It gives ample opportunity to learn about our talents, limitations, and tender spots. Love accepts us as we are, but is also meant to change us. Over the past decade, my partner and I have grown in many ways – both acting as witness and catalyst. Time has offered us the comfort of familiarity, but Love continues to evolve and remain a mystery.
As Tom Robbins wisely concludes:
“Loving makes love. Loving makes itself. We waste time looking for the perfect lover instead of creating the perfect love. Wouldn't that be the way to make love stay?”
This week’s 7 sensory recommendations includes my latest favorite film; a Metta meditation (Loving Kindness); and a simple prompt to spread Love, amongst other treats.
In Joy,
Sabrina
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