These are some letters and poetry of determined love at a time in everybody's life when determined love matters most. Light poverty without a car or mortgage. Jobs for some money to buy food and wine and pay the rent, eventually. Couples should use this book as a primer to take back what the boss and mandated insurance policies have stolen. Cite it as one of several sources used to rekindle the fire that blazed during times of discovery.From the introduction: "I would argue that by covering up real memories of courting happiness to the extent that they exist on par with other childhood rites of passage, like losing teeth or leaving the familial nest, we have denied ourselves and loved ones a published account of what could very well be an example of burgeoning wisdom.So we forget about early love to make room for the tough, grown-up stuff, (ex., career, child rearing, keeping a clean house, grocery shopping, finding hobbies), and no periodic reference to the good ole days can be used to repair broken dreams. Hence dissatisfaction with our wife or husband, the seven-year-itch, and recycled ideas of how great life would be if we could just 'get away'. Separation in the mind, if not actualized, is all too common. And divorce becomes an option, since all reminders of why this girl or guy moved you in the first place, have been buried and lost to time.I believe we all possess this poetry of love's beginning. I think it is a course worth deep study, if only to research why its virtue has been lost to all and sundry. I have brought up these old letters and poems from our musty basement on the eve of my wife's 40th birthday. Lately I have been feeling the overwhelming strain of practicing a repetition of days toward cliché goals. Security, conservatism, wealth, retirement-all notions I would have smirked at when I was in my twenties looking for answers to "why" and "what for?". Then I started chasing Rose, and during the process, saw opportunities arise and abilities executed that I thought could never be. Not quite feelings of invincibility, but close. More like insight into the power of dreams to encourage positive action with another human being. That is I dreamed of a day, maybe a picnic and a movie, woke up and arranged it, and then experienced it with her. Success! Tenderness. Lovemaking. Sleep. And the promise of more."
The Latin phrase "Aut libri, aut liberi"-" Either books or children," has been the mantra of my adult life. I became a father just out of college, at a time when the cult of art possessed secrets as foreign to me as the daydreams of trees. More than anything in the world I wanted to join, to become a member in this secret society. Yet after a million words, and a thousand tubes of chemical paints, and dead-end jobs just hovering above the ongoing poverty-by-minimum wage line, I made the raising of my children a number one priority-all expression kept waiting at a very close, oftentimes inclusive second. That is, the needs of my daughters became the "meaning and justification" of my art. Because of Rhiannon and Sophie, I am a self-taught man of incredible energy. Culinary artist, avid gardener, man of letters, ranting philosopher, and prolific painter are the direct result of a sometimes overwhelming attempt to take full responsibility for my children's education. Their innocence is my inspiration. So far it has remained my sole critic and only reviewer. I am the first to admit, that this stubbornness has cost me early admittance into the secret society. I have lost out on a prestigious doctoral education, New York gallery openings, and/or Pulitzer Prize awards. Yet I have kept to the practice of my art at an impressive, at times, even manic constant. Tonight the meal must be superb, the kid's sense of history as accurate as possible, a love of reading instilled, and a dent into that latest piece on "the grand sorrows of our hyper-culture" At least my conscience is clean. Still, at the end of the day, I often wonder if that smart alec Roman scribe realized he penned the blueprint for achieving an anonymous wisdom in a future "civilized" world. I have chosen the "liberi." For me it has made all the difference. I can hope that the art is true, even if any serious attempt at listing credentials reads like a job application from an inspired dishwasher.
