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This is perpetually my favourite metaphor for love, mostly because there are any number of inane, improbable AND perfectly logical reasons that love might, indeed, be considered rodeoesque:

… there are more clowns than cowboys
… you’re always up to your ankles in shit
… if it lasts longer than eight seconds, you get a prize
… the tighter the jeans, the better it is?

There are a million more, really, but a great many of them involve getting bucked, and we don’t want to go there, do we?

Love is one of those emotions that people tend to make giant sweeping statements about, usually beginning with phrases like, “at the end of the day…” and “when it all comes down… ” and “what really matters is… ”

I used to make those types of statements, in fact.

Well, actually, I still do, but only shortly before I smack myself in the head.

Wisdom about love is pretty rare. It usually comes from really old people, and even then sometimes the advice is completely inapplicable/unhelpful/trite. I know that sounds like a harsh thing to say — REVERE YOUR ELDERS, UNGRATEFUL ONE — but an extra fifty years doesn’t necessarily give you a lock on what it takes to love someone.

Resignation? Yes. Respect for commitment? Yes. Tradition? Yes. Wrinkles and bladder inconsistencies? You betcha.

But I don’t know that time teaches us everything we need to know, or that it heals all wounds, or that it’s on my side, or whatever. Wait, what was I saying?

Not all successful, long-term relationships (depending on how you define success) are based on love, anyway. And love is not a guarantee of a successful relationship.

It’s just one colour out of a million that make up our mosaic bonds (cue the violins.)

We all experience love differently because of who we are, what we’ve been through, what we want, and what we are willing to give and take.

So what’s my point in all of this?

It is an incredibly freeing thing to admit you don’t understand how love works.

To admit that you’re not sure how to make it work.

To admit that making it work is fairly annoying at times.

To admit that you feel it when you shouldn’t, and don’t feel it when it seems like you should.

To admit that it breaks you, to admit that it heals you, to admit that sometimes… you forget what it does or how it feels.

To admit that you are right pissed off at someone for not feeling it about you. Or that you just wish someone would get over feeling that way about you.

And especially to admit that you want love badly even if you suck at it and you have a giant mental notebook full of ideals you’re not giving up even though you pretend to be jaded about it and you hate romantic comedies and don’t get why Meg Ryan is so damn famous and you’re so not in control and you know what? You don’t need to be.

Because the most important way that love is like a rodeo?

You will get roped into it eventually, no matter how fast you run.

Because they love ME.

As I was riding home on my classically overstuffed commuter bus this evening, a sudden jolt of motion caused one of my precious red circle earrings –

– to bounce off of my very cute black scarf… and up and out of my ear.

Hey!

I felt it roll down my shoulder and PING! it hit the floor. Then it rolled under a row of seats and was gone.

I grimaced a little, torn between two realities:

a) it’s such a cute earring! and

b) the seats were full of people who probably did not care enough about the cuteness of my earring to search for said earring and/or displace themselves so I could search.

One woman looked beneath her feet a little halfheartedly, but I wasn’t about to cause a fuss.

“Do you want me to check under my seat?”

“No, no…” I said, pulling off my other earring to tuck it in my bag, “They were super cheap. No problem.”

I comforted myself in the knowledge that the happy circle could be replaced. If it was still available. In that shade of red. Which matched my red boots. Apparently I love cheap red objects.

Then there were many more stops.

Many more people got on and off.

Every now and then, I would hear the red circle skitter along the floor of the bus. But I honestly didn’t know WHERE it was skittering, so I was forced to ignore the freedom-break sounds.

Eventually I just forced myself to stop thinking about it.

Then, about twenty minutes later, I pulled the bell to get off.

As I stepped towards the door, I felt something hit my red boot.

The red circle had found me. Almost magnetically. Magically. Fatefully.

And that’s why I love my red circle earrings.

Well, I don’t know all of them personally, so I’m not sure if I love THEM… but I sure do love their work. Please go to their sites and check them out, and buy things from them or offer them your praise! Support great art, music, and literature!

Molly Jenson is a brilliant singer-songwriter. This girl needs to have a song on Grey’s Anatomy or something like that, and deserves lots of love and attention for her work. This is the music I am singing at the top of my lungs when I walk around my apartment lately.

My friend Laura Koch does some amazing paintings of simple, bold images. She captures mood with colour in a really effective way. Give her a looksee! Buy a painting! She has a cute kid to support! And a very tall husband!

Greg Laswell also deserves your album dollars! He worked on Molly’s album, from what I understand, and is an incredible talent in his own right, too.

If you want to read the kind of stuff that inspired me to blog in the first place — and continues to! — check out Chuck Sigars’ book at his personal website. He’s funny, wise, wry and definitely the Garrison Keillor of Mukilteo (I don’t know if he’ll hate that comparison or not.)

And finally, for some gorgeous photography that will make a perfect addition to your home or a perfect gift for a visually-inclined friend, check out Patia Stephens’ photos right here. Gorgeous! I’m not sure what she’s selling, but you can always contact her to throw money in her direction.

NOW!

Your challenge…

Give us some links to artists, musicians, writers, designers of any kind that you can’t get enough of…