The Nature of Love

This has been a month of sadness for me. My best friend has moved to a new home several states away. Though I know we will continue to talk on the phone and to text or email, it will not be the same as hiking together with my dog, or having supper or a glass of wine after a long day of work. We met at an event for a philanthropic organization funded and run by women for women and their families, one to which we both belong. It was pure serendipity that we connected.

Sitting next to each other, we introduced ourselves and began to chat, and then handed each other our business cards, intent on exchanging phone numbers. When she offered to get together, I took her up on her proposal eagerly and saw that on her card she had described herself as a “writer and editor,” as had I. We both laughed, and in no time at all we had developed a tight bond. New to Annapolis, I had longed for a close friend, and so I was open to this woman with whom I had so much in common.

The poet Mary Oliver sums it up quite beautifully:

“And then my soul

saw you and it

kind of went,

‘Oh there you are.

I’ve been looking

for you.’”

Eight years ago, in California, I had a similarly close friend named Myrna, who lived a town away. The intimacy between us grew ever tighter over the many years of our relationship, which fulfilled all my needs and desires: it was replete with love and laughter and light. I have written of her in one of these letters previously. However, she was stolen from us all by metastatic melanoma, and died in a matter of months, just past her sixtieth birthday. I was bereft.

And now, I find myself pummeled by some of the same emotions for my dear friend here in Annapolis. Someone special has moved far from my life—and though she definitely has not died—our lives now move onward and, inevitably, away from each other in certain ways. I celebrate this transition for her, as I know she will find much pleasure in it once she adjusts, because this new adventure is one she wished for with intensity over the last year. Yet, with ambivalence, I wish she had not chosen to leave. And by that I mean, I wish she had not had to leave me, any more than Myrna did. My sister tells me that this ambivalence on my part is selfish, that I should simply be happy for her. Yet I cannot suppress, in my heart, the dual and concomitant sadness and joy.

Despite these complicated emotions, I want to say to her: Fly fast, fly free, fly on the back of my devotion, into the open panorama of all that is to come. I will always be here if you need me. And that, after all, is the nature of love.

Yours,