L'Amore Domina Senza Regole (Love Exists Without Rules)

 

 

It is Thanksgiving Day and I am thinking about seasonality. I often do, when my dog takes me for long walks before sunrise. We walk through the desert heat; we shiver with the first freeze; and, we tell ourselves that sunrise is in a couple of hours. At least I do. For him, it is the daily gratitude of being able to walk long miles and have me at the end of the leash.

It is that gratitude that I have cherished in dogs, and learned from, over the past 45 years, as I have never been without a canine friend during that period of time. And, we have probably walked enough miles to circle the earth more than once. There are few rules during these walks – in fact just one: I follow my dogs. That is what a long leash allows – there is always one who leads and one who follows.

… I grew up learning how seasons dictate what we eat, what we celebrate and what we cherish in those changes. The food on our table was always fresh, never from seasons past kept in await in a freezer or a tin can. We ate lamb only in the spring, beans and tomatoes in the summer, and fish when small fishing boats were able to get out to sea and upon return, sell the fish on the beach. It was glorious simplicity around the Mediterranean when garlic fried in olive oil always made our house a home. And as I grew older, I listened to the advice of accepting my own changes of season, the discoveries they bring, and the limitations they impose on what to expect and do.

It was never a feeling of being cheated; of being restricted or regretful. Perhaps life can be untasty if it were kept in a freezer or a tin can. It had to be lived and celebrated with the moment, in the moment, but only with love. Even in the most difficult times. Even when one feels that there is no sunrise by the end of a long walk, at the end of a leash.

Because there is.

… It is Thanksgiving Day and tables will be full for the lucky ones who can fill their tables. And I thought about our dining room table when I was a kid as I have kept a picture my father took during a holiday more than 60 years ago when my sister and I were about to start lunch under the watchful eye of our mother. Our dining table was simple, but there was plenty of sunshine bathing the room. And always a bottle of red wine for my father to toast in gratitude. Those lunches tasted better than any I have had in restaurants or prepared by street vendor on four continents. And we gave thanks to our mother before every meal. And after.

It is a photo I revisit when I think about what makes a house (in our case growing up, an apartment) a home. The answer is universal and simple – love of the moment. And we felt fulfilled.

And I recited a line from K. Gibran that has stayed with me as I circled and lived around the globe for the past 50 years:

                             “Love has no desire than to fulfill itself”

 

November 28, 2024

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2024