I Want to Know What Love Is

I'm still working my way through The Art of Presence on audio in the car, and today someone asked Eckhardt a question about love. (The link above has at least a portion of the book that you can listen to online. Fair warning: he's a weird looking dude and his laugh is even weirder, but for me at least, he's a powerful teacher.)

Anyway, I was heartened by his answer. It's the same one that I give, and that prompted me to start teaching a couple's yoga class (even though no one showed up for this past one): spaciousness. Love is meeting another person in the space beyond thought and recognizing and celebrating your oneness. As my most recent love would say: "Awww yeah."

Funny I should mention him, because no sooner had Eckhardt finished his sentence, and I finished that thought, when I found myself smack in the middle of one of those memories that can't help but be jarring in this stage of the healing process.

The very first weekend we spent together, when I flew out to New England, we had just returned from a road trip to Vermont, and had just finished our Stowe-farmer's-market dinner, when he said to me:

"I know this phrase gets overused, but I love you, and I have to say it because if this isn't love, I don't know what is."

I'm here (a little crumpled, but I'm here) to tell you that he does know what love is, that the quality of presence we brought to each other from the first night we met was the basis of our love, and, according to Eckhardt, is the basis of all love in the true sense of the word.

And as Foreigner fired this number up inside my head, I turned off Eckhardt's voice and sang along through my tears:

I gotta take a little time
A little time to think things over
I better read between the lines
In case I need it when I'm older

Now this mountain I must climb
Feels like a world upon my shoulders
I through the clouds I see love shine
It keeps me warm as life grows colder

In my life there's been heartache and pain
I don't know if I can face it again
Can't stop now, I've traveled so far
To change this lonely life

I wanna know what love is
I want you to show me
I wanna feel what love is
I know you can show me

I'm gonna take a little time
A little time to look around me
I've got nowhere left to hide
It looks like love has finally found me

Yep. He showed me alright.

Love finally found me alright.

And then he drove away.

Which leaves me with a kidless Sunday that doesn't at all resemble kidless Sundays with him. Sigh.

But it's still before noon, and I've run 9 miles, been to a yoga class, and mowed the lawn. Not bad, eh? Oh, and at the yoga class, which was decidedly not Ashtanga, I realized reason #4 that I'm into Ashtanga these days (this is a carryover from yesterday):

4) It's the same series of poses every time. It's predictable. Which is comforting, because where my (love)life goes next is not.

And on a lighter note, I did not realize Mariah covered this song, and it's a pretty beautiful rendition. You can check it out right here.