BY JOELLEN COLLINS
“I am besotted with love,” I once said, and I don’t regret it, nor do I regret the intense sorrow that came with that kind of attachment. I can understand passion and the price we pay for it. It has been noted that one does not experience true joy without understanding pain. That particular relationship in my romantic life happened on and off for many years and dominated most of my early poetry and thinking. I have lived long enough to know that positives and negatives are often entwined.
Why do I write such a personal piece today? Perhaps it’s because it’s a sunny and happy day, even though there is not a man in my life—romantically, that is. I can exist without the ups and downs of such a love, and even become besotted with all the other things that surround me.
“Besotted” joins other words which I honored in my love life, such as the lyrics from Pal Joey, “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered,” a testament to my youthful concepts where that devotion to a partner meant accepting—even being the brunt of—his jokes, or accepting whatever treatment that he chose to “bless” me with. I learned that accepting those parameters of love meant that, in the end, I would be “bereft,” a beautiful word used by Robert Frost in one of my favorite poems.
So, all “B” words aside, what do I do with the lack of this kind of involvement? I can choose to fall in love again and again with my family (both lifelong and recently found), my grandchildren, my supportive community, singing in choirs, listening to music, watching the ballet, hearing authors share their insights, standing absorbed in front of a painting in one of our many galleries, or savoring the culinary delights available every day in this part of the country.
I can stroll or walk a bit faster in the surrounding beauty of our mountains. I can read a new book, smell the flowers on my small deck, feel the breeze of late afternoon, dangle my feel in the river. I can play with children, go see my younger friends at The Spot and be overwhelmed by their talent. I can talk with teenagers who inspire me and also learn from other people of my age how to thrive—not just survive—our occupation of the years we have lived and may have left. I can practice better learning and listening skills to anyone with whom I converse. All this is available to me. Oh, and I don’t even backpack or ride horses, like other happy friends!
Most of all, though, I can love those people I encounter each day with compassion, if not the passion I was speaking of earlier. I can cuddle my dogs, smile at neighbors, make chitchat with strangers in the post office or market, or say “Hello” to a passerby. I can enjoy everything that I have at this moment, even without a mate.
I can be besotted with life.