Cupid, Cruising and Choosing

 

A person has to ask him or herself three questions-- 

    First, Where am I going? 

    Second, Who will go with me? 

Third, what vessel shall carry us?

If you ever get the questions in the wrong order you are in big trouble.

-- Paraphrase and extension of Howard Thurman's Law

  

Cupid, Cruising and Choosing

I got them backwards, and we were in trouble.

Years before I met Anke - or gave thought to sailing - I fell in love with a wonderful woman who loved me back. That kind of brimful love where my cup runneth over. Arguably the only kind of love worthy of one's very life.

Problem was that we were one another's answer to the second question. But we hadn't worked the first out between us, whether as individuals or a couple. The third was off the table.

I was a square peg to the round hole of her life. I knew, already, that I wanted to drift through life; she was pursuing hers. To her security meant a steady income and  a fixed address; I felt suffocated by these. She wanted children; I take responsibility seriously, and therefore avoid it like plague... children of one's own are Responsibility personified.

I let her go. On to a life, I hope, full of love and security. The life of her dreams.

I won't go into the details of our parting ways. What's important is that I learned something unexpected, the moment we did. To my surprise, I learned that I would do anything for Love. Until the moment it was too late, I didn't know how important Love is, and how far I'd go to hold onto it.

If you've been following these posts, you know that I love the water, the free life, the wild spaces. But I know that, should Anke suddenly decide on a career ashore, smack dab in the heart of suburbia, knee-deep in kids and a mortgage to pay... well... I'd get out my rigging knife and whittle my square peg round.

So I deeply understand Mr. Thurman's wise Law (as some call it). I recognize the trouble he warns of. Been there; done that. Setting forth on the voyage of Life and Love, it's excellent caution. 

But we don't choose love; it comes to us unbidden. It comes like the williwaw, pouncing and whelming our hearts. To oppose it is to be dismasted... to yield is to sail on. Deep reefed, perhaps, but onward, trouble not-withstanding.

It's a miracle, to me, that Anke and I crossed paths half a world away from her place of birth; flown like a bird from the confines and strictures of the Old World. That her interests and inclinations are as like mine as if I had dreamed her. That she loves me back, of all her many suitors. She's a coincidence and gift of such magnitude that I'm tempted to believe the Universe knows my name - that it, too, loves me.

I don't love Anke more than my first Love. Brimful is brim full. But for us, all three questions are answered in the same terms, in the same breath.

 Lucky, lucky, lucky!

PS. Happy Valentine's Day, or, as I prefer to think of it, THANKSGIVING!!