Love is often depicted in books and film as young, passionate, and romantic but there are many levels and facets in this most basic of human emotion. Love can be a sleight of hand magic trick; here one day, hidden the next. It can be a dried seed deep in the darkness of neglect waiting, hoping for a drop of nourishment. It can be a lifetime of waxing and waning, of perseverance, an ongoing struggle of dedication and duty freely given but soul exhausting. As long as there are humans, with our complex and complicated psyches, there will be unending and shifting versions of love like sands on a beach. In a way, it’s a comfort knowing that love doesn’t have to be static, doesn’t have to conform to anyone’s standard. It is deeply personal.
The five stories I’m sharing here are all personal representations of love written by five eloquent writers. They’re all very different from each other which I find exciting and thought provoking. I think you will, too.
To Fall in Love is to Disappear by Steve Edwards in his Substack. Steve’s story begins with young, passionate, romantic love but he tells us how that young love mellows and strengthens as their life together faces the challenges of life.
In those days, the world was ours wherever we went. We put thousands of miles on my pickup crisscrossing the country to teaching gigs and to visit friends, listening to music along the way, looking out windows, talking and talking, and, for long stretches, feasting on quiet. The internet hadn’t yet come to our phones. We had no photos to post. When we drove off together, we disappeared.
All the Mothers by Karen Salyer McElmurray in Susurrus. Karen writes about the love of the women in her life’s journey, family and friends, in beautiful and poignant detail. This essay/memoir is one I’ll never forget. Beautiful, beautiful prose.
When I am ninety I hope I will remember Sunday mornings at the church house in Van Lear. I hope I will remember how a woman named Mary Ruth offered praise. Mary Ruth picked up her Gibson and buckled its strap on her hip. She flung her long gray hair over her shoulder as she sang the same God songs every Sunday. I was twenty years old and I was leaving home, heading out to make something of myself, something shiny as a brand new dime.
HER UNIVERSE BY Sudha Balagopal in JMWW. Sudha writes a loving tribute to her grandmother, putting us right there in the room with them both. A stunning piece of work.
She smelled of tea dust and talcum powder, coconut oil and cumin seeds, wiped her hands on her sari palloo instead of a towel. I loved the moist fabric under my cheek when she hugged me with her pillowy arms. She called me her star, said I lit up her life, and coaxed me into eating her ghee-drenched balls of spinach rice, even as she fed me tales from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.
A Prayer for the Pool by Lynn Mundell in Literary Namjooning . Oh, gosh. I was blown away by this lyrical, poetic, vulnerable piece. This is what I meant by dedication and duty freely given for love of others but also sapping a strength that must be nurtured and replenished.
I leave my family, even my tiny, vulnerable mother, because sometimes their need is an ocean I can’t swim. I leave work and my shadow who sits at the desk, who can do without me for a while. I leave the recriminations and debts of the past, and the borrowed worries of the future, until the deck is cluttered and I am light.
ORIGAMI GIRLS by Marie-Louise McGuinness in Bottle Rocket Magazine. This piece is fiction but could most certainly have happened. The setting is a Magdalene laundry in Ireland and tells of three women incarcerated there. This story will pull your heart strings as it tells their stories and how they cling to each other. This is a small, tight, protected love necessary for their survival. Coincidentally, I’ve been working on a piece, off and on for a couple of years, set in the laundries so I was very interested to read this. If you’re unaware of the Magdalen laundries where unmarried pregnant women were imprisoned basically as slaves, here is an article. I also recommend the film, The Magdalen Sisters, where I first learned about the laundries.
They’ve worked this station for three days and their clothes are heavy and smelling with old water. Their skin itches raw and their teeth chatter in unison. They ask the nuns if they can work in the drying room, to load the clothes horses in hope of relief from the damp, but Sister Benedict says no.
Ah, love. Hold it tight.
Charlotte! Thank you curating these stunning pieces. Including your own beautiful words. Brava to these writers. Blowing my mind with their prose. Love is simple but not easy.