Lookin’ for Love: In All the Wrong Places

 [Love] is art’s most powerful and enduring muse, fuel for the creative process, more potent than anything the world has known. –Maria Popova

Priming the pump.
Songwriter Johnny Lee and I have something in common– I [am] lookin’ for love in all the wrong places. For if love is the most powerful muse, why is a blank page staring back at me? So, where is the love? Then I remember, and the exhilarating joy of looking, unfolding, breathing in begins… Which image or stunning poetic lines are going to inspire me, lead me down the tortuously sweet path of flowing blue on my pages, into the mad scramble of fingers on the keyboard? In to love?

Is it the beautiful animal photographs in The Photo Ark by Joel Sartore that move me? Who hasn’t been touched by the melancholy of a lone gorilla? Yet nothing stirs within. The amazing volume of Swallowing the Soap by Bill Kloefkorn? No, not that either. But then my eyes wander over to Pablo Neruda’s 100 Love Sonnets with no less a pink cover. These lines encircle me like hypnotic perfume –“Oh, love is a journey with water and stars” and “When I hold you I hold everything that is.”

The lightning bolt.
I turn the pages, aimlessly poring over sonnet after sonnet, letting myself walk into the lines and revel at the intimacy, the undiluted elation of what someone means to another. And suddenly get lost, deeply lost, deliciously so. The “I” that began the ritual of browsing, attending, becomes an “us.” The process of letting go unfolds, and I lift lightly as if winged. Finding my journal, my portal into an expanding universe, the world opens.

David Whyte, English poet and author of several books, calls this experience of encountering a “firsthand” experience. In this kind of experience, someone doesn’t tell us what was stirred or created—we experience it directly. It’s our visceral reaction. All our own. It has our heartbeat and breath. Like lookin’ for love…and falling. Remember that unforgettable feeling?

And so…
If an African Tribal Chief asked me what is love, I would reply: First of all, love is madness, Loving him is like driving a new Maserati down a dead-end street faster than the wind, Taylor Swift sings in “Red Lyrics.” Love is rhythm and harmony and sometimes flat notes. It’s standing on the brink and jumping. Not knowing if he’s going to catch you. Breathing is hard. This isn’t the story of the prince rescuing the princess. It’s a dream in a secret language, both sweet and combustible at times. Always there’s a pursuit. Someone is caught. You’re in a stormy sea, being tossed here and to. Love is like a long river that never ends.  Where we are forgiven and at our best (most of the time). That’s not lookin’ for love, it’s love. – Becky Breed

Creative/Writing Exercise;

• As artists, we listen, explore, touch, taste, and breathe in this beautiful world, both the beauty and the tragedy, letting all of it resonate. And then, we use these powerful emotional experiences to create our work. Consider using a line from a popular love song such as “Thinking Out Loud” by Ed Sheeran to get you started: And maybe we found love right where we are. Then quickly list your first love, high school sweetheart, your soulmate or a love triangle, whatever you’re drawn to, giving attention to what arises. Create. Let love lead the way.
• Or, perhaps, think about other firsthand experiences. Consider looking at favorites in your photo library selecting two or three that touch you deeply. For example, seeing your child or grandchild for the first time, a deep and abiding friendship, viewing the Mona Lisa or other great art, a stunning sunset. Select one that honors that experience. What would you create to show you were wonderfully touched?

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