If Not Love…
By David Corbett | February 14, 2020 |
Photo by Pat Mazzera
Yes, I know, how slight and sentimental—a story of love, while the wolf devours the world.
That sentence appears on the first page of my current novel, which I just finished. It captures not just my hero’s world view, but my own. And since it’s Valentine’s Day, it seems appropriate to talk a bit about that curious experience: love.
In the aftermath of my first wife’s death, I had to find not just a reason to live but a way to do so.
The reason came quickly enough: I wanted to live for the sake of the companionship of the people—and three wee dogs—I had come to cherish. Don’t laugh—the dogs proved crucial. (Tilly, the last of the three, is pictured above.) It wasn’t just in connection but care that I found my way. I wasn’t terribly good about caring for myself for a while, but the dogs needed me, and that kept me going even during the darkest days.
Once I decided not to jump ship, the next question rose to the fore—if I’m going to live, what matters? How can I make that guide my life?
I decided on three key virtues as my compass: love, honesty, courage. I knew, given my innate capacity for over-complication, that I should keep it simple. And I quickly learned that living up to a mere three virtues proved far more difficult than I imagined.
More importantly, I quickly discovered they were interconnected.
The word courage, of course, has its roots in the Latin word for “heart,”though the evolution of usage is never as simple as that. This, from the Online Etymology Dictionary, brings that point home:
1300, corage, “heart (as the seat of emotions),” hence “spirit, temperament, state or frame of mind,” from Old French corage “heart, innermost feelings; temper” (12c., Modern French courage), from Vulgar Latin *coraticum (source of Italian coraggio, Spanish coraje), from Latin cor “heart”…
Meaning “valor, quality of mind which enables one to meet danger and trouble without fear” is from late 14c… Words for “heart” also commonly are metaphors for inner strength.
In Middle English, the word was used broadly for “what is in one’s mind or thoughts,” hence “bravery,” but also “wrath, pride, confidence, lustiness,” or any sort of inclination, and it was used in various phrases, such as bold corage “brave heart,” careful corage “sad heart,” fre corage “free will,” wikked corage “evil heart.”
“The saddest thing in life is that the best thing in it should be courage.” —Robert Frost
Though we often think of courage as persistence in the face of fear—worse, the absence of fear, which is abnormal—this automatically begs the question: why? Why persist? Why not succumb to the fear—run, hide, compromise, surrender?
The answer typically lies in something or someone the individual values with her whole being, or feels she must defend at all costs. Something or someone cherished. Loved.
And yet how easily we fool ourselves in our affections. I’d be amazed if more than a handful of people reading this post haven’t had at least one relationship that didn’t deserve the epitaph, “What was I thinking?”
Misguided love is a kind of self-betrayal, a denial of what one truly believes and wants for the sake of something else more glamorous, more exciting, more dangerous—or less glamorous, safer, easier to manage, etc. One way or another, we’re selling ourselves short. We lack in self-love.
To live the way I wanted to live I had to be honest about what I loved and what I was willing to suffer for, and muster the courage to do so. There it was—all three virtues entwined.
Honesty is always humbling. It requires not just acceptance of who we are, but who we want to be, and why we have not yet become that person. Our lack of clarity as to who we want to be and how we want to live often results from fear of having to admit how far they remain outside our reach, and what it will take to change that. But how we want to live also by necessity includes who we want to share that life with—who we want to love and want to love us. Again, there’s no untying the knot binding these three virtues together.
As in life, so in fiction. We all have heard how much conflict lies at the core of a gripping narrative. Janet Burroway, in her hugely influential Writing Fiction, stated baldly “a story is a war.” However, she qualified this statement in later editions, noting that a story’s “pattern of connection and disconnection between characters” provides “the main source of its emotional effect.” She even suggested birth as an alternative metaphor to battle for story structure. Though birth also suggests struggle, “there is no enemy.” Rather, the story’s forward movement resembles a “struggle toward light”—understanding, experience, wisdom.
And yet, again the question: why? Why do we struggle toward the light? Why aren’t we content to live out our lives in twilight—or even darkness?
I believe the answer lies in the fact that by struggling toward understanding, experience, and wisdom, we are trying to achieve our best selves. And we do that to make ourselves worthy of love. For as important as it is to love, it’s equally important to know love, accept love. Be loved.
Later in the same opening of my novel that I referred to at the top of this post, I respond to the possible belittlement of the importance of love in a world on the brink of cataclysmic ruin with this:
Scoff if you like—if not love, then what? Power, vengeance, wealth, fame—pursue them if you wish. Feed the illusion.
I find them lacking overall, gaudy recompense for the job of survival, a ploy to stand out at the funeral.
And that brings me back to an earlier point, about how it was my wife’s passing that prompted this bout of introspection. For given the unflinching awareness of our mortality, how can we not ask: If not love, then what?
I’ll be teaching at the San Miguel de Allende Writers Conference today, and will likely have limited access to the Internet. Please feel free to comment, however—especially, please offer an example from your own writing or reading that demonstrates how “connection and disconnection,” as Janet Burroway would put it, not conflict, provides the “main source of [the story’s] emotional effect.”
David Corbett (he/him) is the author of seven novels: The Devil’s Redhead, Done for a Dime (a New York Times Notable Book), Blood of Paradise (nominated for numerous awards, including the Edgar, Do They Know I’m Running?, The Mercy of the Night, The Long-Lost Love Letters of Doc Holliday, and The Truth Against the World. He has also published the story collection Thirteen Confessions and the novella The Devil Prayed and Darkness Fell.
David’s short fiction and poetry have appeared in a broad array of magazines and anthologies, with pieces twice selected for Best American Mystery Stories.
His non-fiction has appeared in numerous venues, including the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Narrative, Zyzzyva, MovieMaker, The Writer, and Writer’s Digest.
He has taught both online and in classroom settings through the UCLA Extension’s Writers’ Program, Book Passage, LitReactor, 826 Valencia, The Grotto in San Francisco, and at numerous writing conferences across the US, Canada, and Mexico. In January 2013 Penguin published his textbook on the craft of characterization, The Art of Character (“A writer’s bible that will lead to your character’s soul.” —Elizabeth Brundage), and Writer’s Digest published his follow-up, The Compass of Character, in October 2019.
We both share a common life thread. After the loss of my wife to breast cancer, I found that the basic needs of our three dogs was perhaps the only things binding me to this world. But it was not just their needs that held me true, it was their uncompromising love that showed me the way. Every time I enter the front door, they supplied me with all the hugs, laughter, licks, and wagging tails any soul could need. Every time, whether I had been working all day or walking about the yard.
I soon realized that it wasn’t just their love, but my love for them that saved me. I was in a dark place and found myself struggling for the age old mystery, the meaning of life. For all of eternity,we exist for no time at all, so what was the point, why bother to stay. Surely there was more than getting up, go to work, come home, eat, and repeat.
Some concerned friends at work invited to become part of their church mission. One Saturday a month they feed and minister to families at Memphis’s St Jude Ronald McDonald House. I joined them. Being part of their mission of love gave me the perspective that also saved my life. They were giving the charity of love and compassion to to families facing the same evil that haunted my family for years, cancer.
During one of the chapel services, a quote was revealed that I never really brought to heart. Jesus wanted every one to simply love others as he loved them. Simple enough, right. Not so. It’s an impossible task. You could never love as fiercely as you are loved. Human nature through fear, greed, control, or whatever finds it easier to show the fisted hand of evil instead of the open palm of compassion. It seems that the same Spirit that gave us the Lamb, also gave us the Lion.
As my wife was dying, we found ourselves singing a simple song with her, “Jesus Loves Me.” The song was the only one sung at her service. Simple but profound.
After her passing, I found it impossible to write, or to even read a novel. But in my search for the meaning to life, I contemplated a character that had been bonded with an innate spirit of the cosmos who had experienced all of time and space but never humanity. What was the point of our tiny, limited existence? This was unique to religion. Humanity teaching the spirit.
As I was pondering this the answer to the meaning of life had been before me all along. It was Love, the Love of my life, the unconditional Love of my three dogs, the Love of charity, the of friends and family, and the Love of faith. Love is a two why street, the more you give, the more you will receive.
Earlier I said that loving others as much as the Lord loved you was an impossible mission, well, give it a try, it comes easier with practice.
LOVE IS THE MEANIG OF LIFE!
Hi, TR:
My wife and i sang, “You are my sunshine” and “Oh, So Happy” while she was dying. It helped.
Thanks for the very kind and open response.
I loved this so much, as well as David’s essay. We are made for love–real, authentic love–and that is what our heart responds to. I wrote my love story here: https://vijayabodach.blogspot.com/2017/07/a-love-story.html
In my novel BOUND, 17-yr-old Rebecca says what you both say, “Sometimes it takes greater courage to live.” She’s a burn survivor. But she has also lost her mother.
I believe that at the heart of all stories is a love story. In BOUND it is between two sisters, bound by love, torn apart by sin. There is no such thing as a private sin, no? We are connected.
David, thank you as always for a beautiful post, on this St. Valentine’s Day. God bless.
Thank you Vijaya for your kind heart and the link to your Love story. I would encourage any one who finds themselves alone in the Dark to read it.
Thank you, Vijaya. “The heart of all stories is a love story.” My favorite line, to various chagrined members of my small critique group, is “They are all love stories.” Some dismiss this, of course. Some gasp in surprise when I point out where I found it. It’s so obvious. Thank you, again. It’s nice to know I am not the only one who sees it.
Thank you both.
I am a failed Buddhist; failed in the sense that I have never been able to accept the impermanence of all things.
My own impermanence doesn’t alarm me, although if I were a more compassionate person, perhaps it would. We grief the one who left us, yes, but the ones who are left behind deserve our greatest pity.
How do you go on after the death of your lover, your mate, your best friend? How DID you go on?
Yet this is where we are all headed, if we’re the lucky ones whose relationships weren’t torn asunder by divorce or separation. This is how the story ends.
I believe it has taken you massive courage to keep going. The trauma of knowing what’s at stake, how it ends, never leaves you. You just find ways to briefly forget.
I’m sorry you went through this earlier than most and more painfully than some. I could say you’re not alone, there are millions of people that have suffered a similar loss, but that’s not exactly true. Your loss was unique because you and your late wife were unique. We may be looking at the same tree, but we perceive it differently.
The critters help. Being needed is a powerful incentive.
But I still hate your loss.
Hi, Stacey:
Pena Chödrön’s When Things Fall Apart was a guiding light as I grieved. Her take on impermanence was something I truly grabbed onto for dear life, though I too would have to consider myself a less-than-perfect Buddhist. I think of myself of an “Operatic Buddhist,” too full of an earthy love of life — food, wine, and song — to be as self-denying as I should be.
Thank you so much for chiming in.
Pema’s book gets opened a lot around here! It’s like an inhale after holding your breath!
That book is everything to me. It changed my life. I love that it lighted your path, too.
Stay strong, my friend. We need your words. We need your stories.
Thank you for your inspiring message about the greatest power on earth. It takes tremendous courage to marry and to have children because of the risk of loss, but a solitary life, a disconnected life is merely existence. May we have the courage to live fully and to love every day.
Thanks, Joni. I think it was Iris Murdoch who said that love is the queasy realization that something other than oneself exists — it’s the one true was to be real in the world. I agree — with her and you. And yeah, few things are as terrifying as being a parent. Courage!
Beautiful, achingly honest post. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you, Tiffany — and now I must run to my classes. Thank you all for commenting, I’ll try to get back here later in the day.
Thank you for the Valentine, David. It’s a beautiful and inspiring post, and also timely for the story I’m working on now, in which a 17-year old grapples with all the kinds of love there are, especially love for herself.
Powerhouse post – thanks for your heart-wrenching honesty, and for the reminder that from introspection comes some of the deepest storytelling.
Grief seems to be one of the few things in life that doesn’t get easier to handle with more practice. It’s a gut-punch every single time. But you shed new light on what the word “courage” means, and gave me much to think about.
And I admire both the moral compass you chose, and the fact that you chose one at all. Decades ago I got my first tattoo, to commemorate my father’s death, and based the design on the Irish Claddagh ring and its symbolism of friendship, loyalty and love, which at the time seemed like good things to focus on. I think I like your three compass points even better.
Thanks for the book recommendation – I just ordered “When Things Fall Apart” (because the older I get, the more things seem to do just that).
Wishing you a Valentine’s Day filled with love: both the two-footed and the four-footed kind.
Thanks for the beautiful post, David! I’m 24,000+ words into a new WIP that is turning out to be a love story much to my surprise. Your post will be a helpful reminder of all to consider.
David, thank you for this extraordinarily generous and vulnerable post. When Don Maass asked us at UnCon what we wanted to shout to a crowd of people, I wrote “Love one another!” And realised it was the core of my WIP, just as your talks about character helped clarify things for me.
Equally, what you’ve said here about Burroway’s connection and disconnection has reassured me about the “conflict” in my WIP where the protagonist is struggling to keep her family together after a devastating blow. It’s all about connection and disconnection.
How lucky those attending your classes today are!
Brilliant post, David. Your sharing is not only so well written, but also incredibly helpful on many fronts. I needed this for my own reasons. Thank you for this! Warm regards, J.F.
Thanks, David. This beautiful post that celebrates the basis of our ability to live–the love of another–certainly spoke to all of us. From the age of three, I’ve lived with a big loss in my life, my father, but flourished because of the love of my mother. Damn, that is so basic–but so many people don’t have that. Love nourishes and giving it back does too. One wedding anniversary, I gave my husband the Irish Claddagh ring–his roots are Irish. But may we all live by friendship, loyalty and love. May Valentine’s day remind us of that.
Beautiful stuff David. A short while back, my girlfriend and I spent a couple of hours with a dying friend, the wife of my best friend. She is in hospice at home, and her time is near. She was always a warm, witty and grounded person, but seeing her wan but smiling face in what is now her home, her bed, was so moving.
She seemed almost like a guru or visionary of sorts, very at ease with her fate (if you can be at ease and ethereal at the same time), with what’s to come, reassuring me that she is OK with it and that she’s fine.
The depth and grace of her presence was amazing, more so because her decline, from pancreatic cancer, has been so rapid. I was a useless blubberer at the end of our time—the dying person had to reassure me that all was well. Her biggest concerns were about her two teenage boys and her husband, after she goes.
I will have to read When Things Fall Apart. Have a great time in San Miguel—I house-sat for 2 months there a few years ago and loved it. Thank you for another heartfelt post.
I don’t think there is such a thing as a failed Buddhist or even a not-so-perfect Buddhist. There is simply being who we are in each moment, without judgment.
One of the great ironies in being awake is that you can only realize that you were awake when you stop being as awake or sort of drop out of it. Kind of like when we are sick and are fully present with that misery, and then suddenly there’s a moment when we realize we aren’t quite so sick any more.
David, your three interconnected virtues reminded me of a personal motto Dick Francis used for one of his characters:
May I deal with honour,
May I act with courage,
May I achieve humility.
As you say, we need to strive for the best in ourselves, knowing that we won’t achieve it every moment. And sometimes even in the moments we do achieve it, we feel unworthy, as if that couldn’t possibly be us.
I’m not as naive nor as innocent as I was when I was five years old and rocking on my rocker watching Roundup Day on the Mickey Mouse Club in my little cowgirl outfit, or in the spiritual quest of my teens when I moved back and forth between the Catholicism of my youth and the non-denominational youth group of my high school friends.
There are times now when I despair and feel hopelessly lost in my own life. And yet, in me there is a core of something – call it faith, love, courage – that gets me up every day, every moment, to start again.
Thanks, David, for sharing this column. I hope you had a great day of teaching.
I have nothing to add, except that I’m here with you, my friend, always.
Very powerful post that has me thinking over my own reaction to loss. I’m not sure how it has affected my life outlook, but I lost my first husband to a brain tumor in my late twenties. My second marriage in my thirties fell apart due to my husband’s drinking, although we remained friends. I fell in love at forty and tried again, sure the third time would be lucky.
My third husband was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer shortly after our second wedding anniversary and passed away within the year. My ex, the charming rogue who I had kept in touch with, died the following summer of liver disease.
I think those losses have made me a fatalist, more than anything. Beset by an irrational fear that I was some kind of jinx, I refused to get married again, but I might as well have. I’ve been with my current partner longer than any other but he had to undergo a quintuple bypass in 2015. It was like deja vu when the doctor told me he was having a heart attack.
These experiences have influenced the characters that live in my novels, especially the women. None of them have had easy lives, and none of them have found a happy-ever-after relationship, nor do they expect to, but they persevere. Yes, it’s just a mystery series, but I explore what I think are important themes. And it’s no wonder that dogs and the love of dogs appear in almost every book. I grieve the loss of my animals almost as much as the loss of members of my human family.
For me, I try my best to understand how others feel, to be kind to everyone and to make life as good as I can for those in my close circle. I guess that’s love.
When I first met you, David, you were reeling from Terry’s death. Your first book had come out (and was that kick ass book, just sayin’). And now you have have a new love and several great books since then, and isn’t it wonderful how we create a space for another person that fills a space in your heart that you never knew existed. It’s a new space, but no less heartfelt and precious. And, may I say? Dogs are the frigging best.
Thanks, Claire, for being such a good friend over so much time. And the new space we create, I think, might not exist if not for the previous space we created. I truly believe I became a better man because of my first marriage, and it’s helped me immensely with this second one. Thanks for chiming in, my dear.
“Misguided love is a kind of self-betrayal” ding, ding, ding… you said it! Thank you for this gorgeous heart-felt post. Watch Ivan Ramen (Chef’s Table – Season 3). IMHO We can only know ourselves through the shared experience of love. What I am working on… is a character that has difficulty with the vulnerability and shared experience of love. I have been studying this type of character like Theo Decker (The Goldfinch), Philip Bowman (All That is), Austin Fraser (The Underpainter). I think they are/were rooted in pain and fear. What makes the Goldfinch brilliant is the transformative power of love. I read the last 50 pages twice a year. I’ll be wanting to read your novel.
Thanks, Luna — and everyone. I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to respond more thoughtfully to each post, but the last few days have been hectic with first teaching then travel. I’m so glad this post resonated with so many of you.
I find them [power, vengeance, wealth, fame] lacking overall, gaudy recompense for the job of survival, a ploy to stand out at the funeral.
Wow.