Losing Love is Like a Window in Your Heart

She loves me, she loves me not. She loves me, she loves me not. And so it goes, this thing called love.

I need a tee shirt with the following words silk screened across the front of it: “I’m not worried about 2012. I survived disco, new wave, and falling in love. I can survive anything.”

Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1tTN-b5KHg came out in 1986, when I was just getting my career underway. I had experienced the early 1980s in California, which was as perfect as a place to be during this time as anywhere. I had a roommate that used phrases like 'mondo,' 'stellar,' and 'way cool.' The weather in Santa Barbara was fabulous, every day. I was a late bloomer, but I was in my prime. I also had five years of work experience under my belt. When I left San Francisco, California in 1985, where I'd worked for two years as an art director, I took a job in Central Oregon at a magazine publisher. In the studio I worked in I had a stereo set on a shelf that was on most of the time. Music was always my raison d'être, and when I staged photo shoots the photographer, the models, and stylists,  were working to the beat of the music.  We were young and life was good. I was newly married and my wife was pregnant with my first child.

When Paul Simon’s “Graceland” album came out that year I immediately loved it. The line I liked from the title track: “I have reason to believe we will all will be received in Graceland.” Simon had written the songs on the album during and after his failed marriage to Carrie Fisher. His personal life was in shambles and his future as a songwriter was in jeopardy. As an ASCAP songwriter I understand that chaos often bring opportunity for creativity, like the saying that when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FEBDNJtNWk&feature=related

We have diamonds on the soles of our souls. You just have to walk in faith and make the diamonds sparkle. And if you fall in and out of love then at least you have tried. Love, good love, sticks to the soles of your shoes like bubblegum on a sidewalk. It is like the shine off a National guitar. Maybe we all should have a reason to believe we all will be received in Graceland. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teCJiqTLKQg

Everybody sees you’re blown apart when you have a broken heart. You got diamonds on the soles of your shoes, but you got the blues everywhere else. Everybody here knows exactly what I’m talking about. Diamonds on the soles of our shoes.

Listen: I am a die hard romantic. I watch old romantic movies; I listen to old love songs. A long time ago, when I was thirteen, I fell in love for the first time. And when you fall in love a lot of things start to percolate. People say we are crazy, and we are: crazy in love. And now, here when most would tell me, give up on love, the train has left the station – love has landed in my life. I am falling in love again and it is like that old song, “Sooner or later, love is gonna get you.” I didn’t find this woman, she found me. I was lonely like a lot of single men are. I joined two dating sites. I sometimes got off of them. Seven years have passed since my long, mostly unhappy marriage ended. There have been a couple of contenders for my love in this time period. All were blonde. They say the third time’s a charm, and so I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when yet another notice was delivered to my email in box informing me that a woman had written me an email. This was a site called “Book of Matches,” I regretted having joined almost immediately, and habitually deleted notices from BOM for two years. But for some reason I decided to read this woman's email. The woman had read my profile and told me that what I had written on my profile had taken her breath away. I wondered if she had asthma or she was deranged. I only wrote what I feel, I didn't expect it to win some woman's heart.  I hadn’t taken anyone’s breath away before. Was she a crazy person?

She was a widow, and blonde. Her husband had died when his heart suddenly ruptured less than a year ago. Her daughters had told her to not date for at least four years, but she had not listened to them. And now this woman was writing me, and unlike all the others I’d written she wanted me to write long emails. She wanted to learn French, go dancing with me, play tennis, and make a life together. She lives in the town where all my things are still stored in Oregon. The coincidences were overwhelming. Was she stalking me? Did she think I had diamonds on the soles of my shoes?

So I wrote her back, and it began. She kept surprising me with her depth. She was a Christian, and had a lovely, loving family. She sent photos of herself with her grown daughters and granddaughters baking in her kitchen. Something in me wanted to join them, but when a man has been betrayed as I have been betrayed, it is hard to let the walls crumble. It is hard to be vulnerable again, and trust.

In eighth grade I fell hard for a girl named Annie Wells. Annie was a big girl, about 5’7” and blonde. Her family owned one of the many orchards in the Hood River valley. I had almost no experience with girls, so I did what I thought a guy was supposed to do, I did a lot of showing off. And Annie was my fan. One day on the athletic field I came up behind her and snapped the back of her bra through her shirt. I don’t know why I did this other than I didn’t know the proper way to say hello. To her and my horror, the bra came undone and she ran, red faced, the several hundred yards back to the school. The romance had begun. Realizing that I was madly in love with her, Annie blushed whenever I came around. I didn’t know the next step in the process so I had my friend go to a convenience store near our middle school to buy her a five-dollar ring. I didn’t have the courage to give it to her, so he did it for me. And then we were engaged. Like most adolescent love affairs Annie and I did not court for long. We didn’t even kiss. There was a lot of nervous looks and walking by each other in the hallways. And then the school year ended and my family moved to an adjacent county and I began high school.

Three years passed. I went to a county fair with my brother and his date, and my date. And there was Annie, about an inch taller, and still in love with me. I could see it in her eyes. My date stood a hundred feet away by my car waiting for me while I talked to Annie and her girlfriend. Annie wanted me to stay and go to a dance with them but I had to go. I never saw Annie again, but I still think about her.

When a person gives their heart it is a precious gift that we must be careful not to trample. This woman who is writing and phoning me now is a new love. I must be careful and do nothing to wound her. It is a scary thing to give your heart to someone. You must always be honest and respectful. How can a person know if a new love is right or wrong? It is like jumping into a lake you have never swum in before. There may be rocks; the water may be shallow. You could hurt yourself. Be careful.

To me the most romantic scene was in Casablanca, where Humphrey Bogart (Rick) is with Ingrid Bergman, (Elsa) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wo2Lof_5dy4  She has asked Sam to play, “As Time Goes By.” Rick comes in and scolds Sam, saying he told him to never play the song again, and then Rick sees Elsa. Their eyes say it all: the love is still there. But Elsa is married, and though she thought she was a widow when Rick and she first met – she must now face Rick and tell him the truth. And Rick must do the thing he does not want to – he must let her go and do the right and heroic thing and save Elsa and her husband from the Nazi’s.

Time heals all wounds, but it doesn’t erase memories. A new love makes new memories, and in time I think a new love can be better than all loves before it. When a woman is a widow, a man can never replace her husband. You can’t be with someone because they remind you of someone you once loved – but lost. It is human nature to do this. Love can make a deep wound in us, and the only way to close up the wound is to fill it with a new fresh love. You can fall in love at any age. You just have to start.