Tonight I had a conversation with some good friends about this subject, love and lust. I stand up for the idea of love, enduring, undying love — a divine thing that captures the soul and enhances everything about it; while some I know, and I say this without judgment at all, believe this energy to be a biological thing that draws us in, entraps us, and then leaves us without its glow, stuck in a situation. At the end of my marriage when circumstances demanded that I fall out of love, I thought “How do you do that? I can’t fall out of love with the father of my children any more than I can fall out of love with a my children. It’s unnatural and can’t be done.” I began to experience my being in love as a mental illness, something I had to find a cure for. I saw people in love and wondered if they were sick, like me. I still wonder about this.

I profess nothing. I raise only the question. I see love between people and I do believe in it. My friend who just died was definitely in love with his wife of 30-some years, I heard glorious traces of that in every conversation we ever had. I just now started to continue to list references of real love I have witnessed in others and that I feel sure of, but the list would go on too long. So I leave the reflection at this. Romeo and Juliet were in love, but died young. Macbeth and his wife, more complicated. Story, history and life give us endless reflections and questions about this connection, but no final answer.

I sat on a porch tonight in Appalachia talking about the eternal question. I made my case. I believe, but I don’t know. That is kind of scary.