In two movies we’ve seen lately it is said, and apparently without fear of contradiction, that “love fades,” but I would say that is not so. Yes, I suppose it can fade, if you let it, but if you follow Dante’s dictum, and don’t let the flame go out, it shouldn’t.
And also, in one of those movies we’ve seen recently, someone says, “Love is never having to say you’re sorry.” Sorry, that’s wrong too. Love means having to say you’re sorry countless times.
Love means never letting her wonder if you’ve left a margarita for her in the pitcher you’ve put in the refrigerator, even if she doesn’t want one.
Though she may not want one, she has been left a margarita because he is attentive, and — despite always speaking out of turn, never doing anything around the house or in the yard — loving.
Love means never winning at backgammon. Love means making the bed with hospital corners just as you were taught in the Army. Love means cleaning those special spots in the bathroom where she’s bound to look. Love means making dinner, even if it’s a baked potato and arugula salad. Love means gathering twigs when she’s out of starter logs and building a crackling fire just as you did when you were a Sparrow Scout. Love, in brief, means remaining engaged. There’s a nice ring to that, don’t you think?
When I told my cousin Margot, who had phoned from Tidewater country, that, amazingly, we still were happy to be in each other’s company despite having been closeted together for more than a month, she laughed, and said a woman down her way who’d been married for 60 years said, when asked by an interviewer if quarantining had prompted her to consider divorce, replied, “Divorce? No, but I have thought of murder.”
I haven’t picked my nose in 34 days, a record I’m sure. You grow too soon old, too late hygienic.
O’en, after I’d walked him, bolted out the door into the inspiriting wind last night. “He’s alive,” Mary said by way of explanation. “I am too,” I said. “Sort of.”
This morning’s news, however, gave us hope that some day in the not too distant future we may be able to trade in this circumambient torpor for the boredom that used to hit us like a ton of bricks out of the blue and send shivers up our spines.
Just kidding. I know that to be bored is a luxury nowadays, and I loved what Mark Shields said the other night, that rather than the pigs of Wall Street and the god of Mammon, those meriting adoration these days were the many good people who were putting their lives at risk to benefit the commonalty. Those health care workers, essential business owners and their employees, the mailmen and women, and the volunteers making personal protective equipment and those helping in many other ways were the real heroes, he said. May that ever be true. Love doesn’t fade.