Straight To The Heart Of Love

Reading and writing require me to be in a certain headspace. The monkey chatter of my mind as to quiet enough to absorb, formulate or share cogent thoughts. Sometimes I'm just "in the zone" and can get a lot done. Perhaps because of my years of college journalism and brief foray at professional newspapers after that, I am better able to write on command.

From the time we had Sennen onward, it became harder and harder find the time and space on an average day to sit down and read. Mind you, I'm not a quick reader – but I process and retain. But falling into literary lapse wasn't an option. So I embraced audio books and for many years have made use of my car time to stay "well read".

One of the joys of traveling alone is the quiet time to read. Especially here on Ko Samet – on vacation – I have the time and mental space to engage in good, old fashioned paper books. It gave me the chance to finally finish Love In The Time Of Cholera which I had read most of in Greece and then had to shelve for awhile. 

Any Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel is a treat and among so many aspects of life, they all explore the real meaning of love. Most books, films and TV shows center around passionate love or romantic love – the excitement of the flame and the dedication we make to each other while head-over-heels. Loves of our lives, soul mates, secret romances, lost romances, inappropriate loves, flames rekindled, second chances – we enjoy these and they make up a large part of our entertainment. 

Marquez certainly goes into hot, passionate love, sex, flings and a bunch of other things. But more than any author I know, he explores the the faithful, challenging, aging, enduring love of a long-term relationship and the struggle and surrender it takes to reach it. No book I've read explores and celebrates it as much as Love In The Time Of Cholera. For that reason, it was almost a serendipitous selection for 2022 because it's ideal for anyone struggling in a marriage or long-term relationship.

Spoiler Alert for anyone who hasn't read it, Love In The Time Of Cholera pushes its way toward concluding that there are many loves for many times in life and that we can find joys and satisfactions in changing love – and ultimately perhaps the most in accepting that the love that we experience for most of our adult lives is nothing like the violins and roses of early romantic love. As one of the main characters, Fermina Daza, begins to find a late-in-life love her middle-aged daughter Ofelia steps in to try to stop her mother from entering a relationship unbecoming an older woman, offering a classic Marquez style cynicism.

"Love is ridiculous at our age," she shouted , "but at theirs it is revolting."

As one can imagine, Ofelia did not prevail and before Fermina Daza – roughly 76 years old – steps into a new love that is not at all the same as her prior, she reflects

She was lost in her longing to understand. She could not conceive of a husband better than hers had been, and yet when she recalled their life she found more difficulties than pleasures, too many mutual misunderstandings, useless arguments, unresolved angers. Suddenly she sighed: "it is incredible how one can be happy for so many years in the midst of so many squabbles, so many problems, damn it, and not really know if it was love or not."

Marquez essentially concludes that love is ridiculous and impractical, but necessary. That over life's journey, love transitions – and that transition is turbulent and frequently painful. Yet somehow worthwhile.

I never asked our couples therapist if she had read Love In The Time Of Cholera and if so, what she thought of it. I suspect she would have liked it a lot because among many things, it deal with the rawness and messiness of relationships in all their various kinds and stages. Marquez's conclusion is pretty much what our therapist wants everyone to come to – that the transition to a sustained and deeper love is worthwhile. One must let go of the romance to get to the deeper love that sees you through the rest of your life. 

This is where Emily got off the train. Which is probably why the book felt so well timed – or maybe ironically five minutes too late. Who knows?

Maybe it's the right book for me and would never have helped our marriage anyway. Couples therapy helped me open my eyes to what I want for my future and what I need to change to avoid repeating the same mistakes. I don't want to look for another Emily – my future should be with someone who can make the transition, someone who realizes like Fermina Daza and Florentino Ariza finally do by the end:

Contrary to what the Captain and Zenaida supposed, they [Fermina Daza and Florentino Ariza] no longer felt like newlyweds, and even less like belated lovers. It was as if they had leapt over the arduous cavalry of conjugal life and gone straight to the heart of love. They were together in silence like an old married couple  wary of life, beyond the pitfalls of passion, beyond the brutal mockery of hope and the phantoms of disillusion: beyond love. For they had lived together long enough to know that love was always love, anytime and anyplace, but it was more solid the closer it came to death.

I was given the good advice to wait at least a year before dating. Being alone and healing seems like the right move to me – and knowing that I want something that will eventually, over time get me to where Fermina Daza and Florentino Ariza did. 

Then I switched back to Orhan Pamuk's latest novel, Nights of Plague which also spends some time on cholera. So that's a real theme this trip – cholera. So is reading Nobel Prize winning authors. Good stuff.

Yesterday was my last full-day on Ko Samet. I leave this morning for Bangkok. The interesting thing about staying on Ao Vongduean has been that it is largely occupied by families and older travelers – people who want quiet, nicer amenities and aren't here to party. I'm not here to party, so it has felt ideal. It has also meant watching a lot of people who are doing what Emily and I have done for years with our kids – travel and enjoy places like islands in Thailand. In that, I've had the opportunity to watch people's dynamics, their energy and what it all looks like from the outside. I wonder how much we looked like them from the outside. 

Three nights ago, I dropped off my laundry in "town" and started to walk down Hat Saikaew – the largest beach on the island, closest to where we stayed last year. We spent time on Saikaew and Ao Phai and Ao Prao below it. Those were our haunts. I couldn't make it a third of the way down the beach before I decided to turn around – it was too painful. Sadly, I had brought my kids to a place I had also enjoyed in my 20's and at least for now, the nostalgias have mixed and there's no revisiting them right now. Hopefully in time, I will walk that beach more able to remember the sweetness – or maybe again walk it with the kids, writing yet another chapter for me and that beach.

What I realized during this time on Ko Samet is I'm angry about many things, but the worst of it is with myself. There were so many ways I refused to accept hard, cold realities. I had other choices at several points – many long ago – and for reasons I won't get into here, I didn't take them. It will take longer for me to get over how I failed than anything else. The work remaining for me is now much clearer and significant.

Of course, the great part of failure is the opportunity to learn and grow. As Joseph Campbell said, "Where you stumble, there is your treasure."  While I didn't actively do much specifically to learn or grow during my time on Samet, I believe this trip is part of a bigger journey. Just vacationing in my own company is a good step and one I hope lays a foundation.

Today is the beginning of the next phase of the trip. Back to Bangkok for a night and then onto Singapore where my focus shifts to a friend's wedding and the joys of starting fresh. Old friend, familiar place, new beginnings and joys.