365 Photo Project - Day 45

Taken: February 14, 2010, approx. 5:30 p.m.
Location: Healdsburg, CA

I know,  I know. That damned bridge again. But come on. Look at that reflection. I had to shoot it. And hell, I did find a whole new spot to catch it from, so it's not as if I'm going back to the same old places. And anyway, it just seemed the right sort of image for a day devoted to matters of the heart.

I don't like to admit it, but I'm a total sap. One of those people that gets all teary-eyed at the end of great love stories. Not all love stories, mind you. Large-scale epic stories of love and lost and found again often bore me to tears. I know it's sacrilege but I'll take "Americanization of Emily" or "Love Actually" over "Love Story" and "Gone With the Wind" any day. It's not that matters of the heart are a joke, far from it. But I do think we tend to take love way too seriously.

I like the idea that there's only one person for everybody but I don't believe it. I mean come on.  Say you're born in the Bronx and your perfect match is some bushman in the Australian outback. Not likely you're going to be finding each other on Spring Break in Tampa.

The shrinks of this world put their kids through college trying to answer the great questions of love, why we make the choices we make and all the pride and heartache and emotional baggage that goes along with it. I think most people get it right on some level. The older you get, the more at peace you are with the choices you make and the life you end up living. No shame in that. Not at all.

But many others take it too damn personally. Love is heartless really. And you're not going to be spared. Not unless you hole up in a cabin like the Unabomber and rail against the world and everyone in it. Nobody knows why we fall at all or how we can fall in and out of love with the same person, some more than once. There's no real science to the vagaries of the heart, no instruction manual, no universal truths except that it's as unpredictable and crazy as it is wonderful and fulfilling. Nobody knows nothing and anybody who thinks they understand it is a snake oil salesman looking to make a buck off your heart.

I think we spend way too much time finding faults in our partners than looking inward. Love begins in your own heart and your own you. I mean it's impossible to commit to another person if you don't love yourself.  The more comfortable you are with yourself, the easier it is to forgive someone else's faults, to walk in their shoes, to be compassionate and forgiving. After all, we are all imperfect, all capable of making big-ass mistakes, of being stupid and hurtful. It's learning from our imperfections that make us better people and I think, easier to live with.

I don't mean to imply I have the answers. God knows my relationship isn't smooth sailing. But here's what I do know: you can't apply logic to love. It's never going to make sense, even when it works, especially when it works. And if you ever think you've figured it all out, take a deep breath and remind yourself you don't have a freaking clue.

Shot this with my K100D and edited in Photoshop.