Thank you, M

It must have been a month ago when I sat down with M and told her the truth about myself and the fuzzy, despair-inducing cycle that is my love life (if I can even call it that).

She sent me these words. Thanks, M.

"When you love someone, you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. It is even a lie to pretend to. And yet this is exactly what most of us demand. We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the slow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb. We are afraid that it will never return. We insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity - in freedom, in the sense that dancers are free, barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same pattern.

The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not in hoping, even. Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what was in nostalgia, nor forward to what it might be in dread or anticipation, but living in the present relationship and accepting it as it is now. Relationships must be like islands, one must accept them for what they are here and now, within their limits - islands, surrounded and interrupted by the sea, and continually visited and abandoned by the tides."

~from Gift From the Sea, Anne Morrow Lindbergh~

Love is a temporary madness
It erupts like volcanoes and then subsides
And when it subsides you have to make a decision
You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together
That it is inconceivable that you should ever part
Because this is what love is
Love is not breathlessness
It is not excitement
It is not the promulgation of eternal passion
That is just being "in love" which any fool can do
Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away
And this is both an art and a fortunate accident
Those that truly love, have roots that grow towards each other underground
And when all the pretty blossom have fallen from their branches
They find that they are one tree and not two.

~from Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres~

On Marriage
Then Almitra spoke again and said, "And what of Marriage, master?"
And he answered saying:
You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when white wings of death scatter your days.
Aye, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together, yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress tree grow not in each other's shadow.

~from The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran~

Comments

[Anom]

Phew! For one moment I read it as "Thank You, DR M".

Nearly fainted.

[gigglycow]

:)

[maine]

I dunno what I have been missing but this made me feel better with the mind turbulence I am going through.
So are you alright now?

[rara avis]

completely unrelated but am
making my rounds in everyone's blog
where i have "links". due to some technical fault blah3x i have had to get rid of my
hyphen in the URL add. so my new url
address is: http://raraavis.typepad.com