It's Not about Love

Sometimes you just feel like you have to post, even when what you have to say isn't interesting or funny or important. It's been a while since I've blogged, and that's partially because I've been uninspired. Yes, I know, again. It's not that there haven't been wonderful things going on; it's just that they haven't compelled me to write. Time has also been hard to find, and yet when I did find the odd hour or two, I found myself preferring to do something else. I sense I'm going through one of those phases where I'm trying to figure out what I want my blog to "be"--at this moment I've settled on "whatever comes to mind"!

I thought about posting about love. My friend Taron, who writes a wonderful blog called Mind, Body & Scroll, encouraged her mates to write on the topic in October . . . but my adventures in love have been complicated, and I felt like I couldn't be true to my feelings about the subject without possibly unsettling others. I will simply say that each love has been different in wonderful ways, and I am blessed to have had an abundance of love in my life, which shows no sign of fading with age! I think, deep down, that I didn't want my current love to think there was anyone or anything more important to me than him--that is the truth--and sometimes bringing up the past can place too much meaning on what should, simply, be left in the past.

I came across two things that struck me today. One was from Mona Simpson, who eulogised her brother Steve. Her words were simple, evocative, and honest. She made me cry. There are phrases like "He treasured happiness." Or "Steve worked at what he loved. He worked really hard. Every day." I thought, what love between them; what genuine caring and admiration her words spoke. I want to live some of those words, I want to emulate that caring. I hope I do. And oddly enough, I feel I was taught some of those lessons from someone who, like Mona's brother, battled with pancreatic cancer. At the end of the article I smiled and wished I could reach out to her and say, well done and thank you.

The other bit that crossed my inbox today was a clip of Malcolm Gladwell, one of my favourite writers, giving a presentation for TED about the Norden bombsight. Norden was born in 1918, a Swiss engineer who developed the technology to target bombs. He is not all that different from Steve--he worked hard every day, passionate about his contribution to the greater good. I'll admit I watched the 15-minute video because I like Malcolm Gladwell; he is an interesting, funny, and compelling person who finds unusual things to talk about and make me think. The message, at the end of the day, was that Norden was a Christian who wanted to mitigate the human cost of war by being able to, with pinpoint accuracy, target important sites and make the enemy weak. In fact it was an inaccurate device, owing to the constraints of technology and the presence of anything but clear blue skies in a time of war. And, in the end, his device delivered the bomb that annihilated Hiroshima.  Apparently no one told Norden that it was his device the Enola Gay carried; as Gladwell said, it would have broken Norden's heart. I'm not sure what the moral of the story is meant to be; for me, it is simply that sometimes things go awry even with the best of intentions; we don't always have control of that.

It is November! I won't count down the days until Christmas--I did take note that the sandwich shoppe placed my takeaway in a bag that was decorated with holiday trees. I am quietly anticipating time away for a delayed honeymoon; time away to see wonderful things, eat delicious food, and explore a different part of the world with someone who I know will make it exciting and brilliant and fun and romantic.

I think this is perhaps my most unusual post--both for its brevity and stream of consciousness. I half thought to scrap it, and dig out the day planner that reminds me that I went to a French cheese and wine tasting earlier this week, or that I've officially changed my name and have the passport to prove it . . . then again, those stories today moved me, and whether you love them or hate them, I wanted to share them.