DENOUEMENT
… ways to make better choices so every day is L-Day
Friday Feb. 14, 2014
Arriving at any eventuality or cross-roads, sometimes feels like arriving early for a flight, or on-time for a meeting – only to learn you are in the wrong place.
Or wrong building. Or wrong day.
What starts as calm comfort of having been well planned and organized shifts immediately to reconcile wild panic inside with calm exterior, not about what we’ve done right or wrong but franticly trying to make some sense of what we are doing while sprinting wildly to the right spot – which, if you knew it at all you wouldn’t be panicked or in the wrong place at the right time – and this, I could also describe as a frequent conundrum among those who find themselves in love relationships, coupled, hitched, hand-cuffed or welded into that immovable place we all wish was bliss, a place where all is cured with a kiss from some miss, but alas I have no credential for giving advice on love on this or any other day.
What qualifies me or any of us for advising on love, on loving, on finding love?
Sometimes our self-help techniques are more easily pointed at others than they are taken seriously when turned inward to help ourselves …
I’ve struggled too often for too long down too many blind alleys, a wanderer in the mist – to be qualified for answers because I’ve always been asking questions. What I do know, what I have learned – is this incredible importance of love in our lives, this balancing act for many, to be insulated from our fear – that absence of love in our lives is the emptiest kind of lonely.
Having lunch yesterday with JJ – he asked what defines what I’ve found when I’ve thought I found it and what I’ve continued to seek in my quest for a great relationship.
In that moment I flippantly answered with my big three: big brain, big libido, big tub. There is more, obviously, that is important to me in my thirst-quench-search for intimacy on intellectual, emotional and physical planes – something much more important, I have concluded.
As I was so poignantly and silently reminded last night.
As I wheeled that shopping cart up and down aisles at Safeway at South Centre …
In that place, memories of laughter and banter with someone made there – in that moment, it was so very clear a reminder, that elusive ingredient that must always be present in every relationship that matters, as it is in every lingering memory of relationships when they are good, when they are working, when they are magical. In friendship, in family, in love and in lust, in thin times, in fat times, high times and low times – drunk times or sobering clear times. That is – having fun.
Some people are fun.
Some are not.
Choose ones who are.
Not constantly funny, but often funny, frequently funny – smiling, laughing, just fun.
JJ .., are you having any fun?
You there – out in the wilderness, anyone, everyone – are you having any fun?
I believe having fun underpins anything good. Fun alone does no successful relationship make, but I defy anyone to show me a good one where fun was not an important part of making it, and of sustaining it. Or, if it is a past one, then an important part of the memories it left you holding.
Two quotes, apropos for L-Day:
“We’re all a little weird, and life’s a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love.” – Theodor Geisel (Dr. Suess)
“To give full value of joy, you must have someone to divide it with.” – Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
I know, I know – I could easily quote Shakespeare or Byron, or Nin, or Bronte because they wrote so wisely and romantically about ardor – but if love is to be fun, I think Suess and Twain make better choices.
Challenges ensue when fun goes away, like a merry-go-round when it stops.
A relationship must be very strong, compelling or worthy to survive absence of fun.
And, in conclusion – this one I’ve reached, is that you can have fun without love, but you cannot have love without fun.
Not to suggest that having fun equates to success in relationships, but can you imagine having one worth having, one that works, that succeeds, that lasts … without it?
Mark Kolke
199,072
column written/ published from Calgary
morning walk: -5C / 24F, more melt coming today, overcast and very pleasant – but this warming results in mucky-paws for Gusta. That doesn’t concern her at all – she’s having fun.
Reader feedback / comments always welcome:
You are appreciated in my life, too, Mr. Kolke. Your unwavering support means a lot to me, and your advice and analysis is always food for thought, CM, Calgary, AB
What I like about you! You touch so many minds. You are the lucky one. You have a dog. You help me think out of the box. You have snow. Your recipes are to die for! When no one is there…you are. You have a song in you heart. You make me smile. Happy Valentine’s day! Mr. Mark, you hit the spot. Add my V-Day note to the rest of the bunch today! May your spirits reach to the sky and your creative juices hit the new level of mastery you've set for yourself for 2014. What a joy! Reading your musings, digesting your thoughts, and pushing and pulling my mind through time and space. Your book comes out when? ~ Aloha from C ~ one of your Honolulu fan club members. (Don't forget us on the way to Maui
Ah, a little magic from Mark. So simple, and yet so effective. I do appreciate you, too. That's why I keep coming back. Thank you, Mark, MO, Monterey, CA
