Sunday, October 4, 2015

SMORGASBORD OF LOVE: Overindulgence Is Good For Me. Good For You.


Smorgasbord of Love: Overindulgence Is Good For Me. Good For You.

Lucky for me, if you binge on love, it doesn’t make you fat, it makes you whole. Last night at the IRC conference, we were discussing the Happily Ever After phenomenon in Romance writing today. Critics of romance call our novels trashy and “simple”, and those of you who read or write it, know it is anything but that. Almost like it isn’t cool to say we want more romance in our lives. Makes us needy. I say, hell yes, I love being needy! I want more romance, don’t you?

 I read the following passage from Your Brain on Love, which I referred to in my newsletter last week. See if you can read it to someone you love without crying. I hope you do!

The chapter is called “Sexuality and Spirituality: Divine Balm For Your Soul and Brain.”

Before he starts the chapter, he has this quote: “Eroticism is….where a man experiences a woman with all his senses and not just his eyes. It’s the insatiable desire to know someone completely.”  --Rabbi Shumley

Here’s the excerpt I love:

I was just a sophomore in college when I began working as an orderly in a nursing home…in Mankato, Minnesota….In the home was one couple I’ll never forget: Henry and Martha. I think they were the only married couple in the nursing home at that time. He was ninety-eight, and she was ninety-six. They had been married for more than sixty years. And this was the second marriage! Henry would wait (from what I learned from the other nurses and the other staff) for the day I would be working. I worked the three to eleven shift, and as the clock inched closer to eleven o’clock, Henry would buzz the nurses’ station, and I would go down to his room. Henry always wanted the same thing: for me to help him from his bed over to his wife’s bed. I think he was embarrassed to let one of the female nurses or aides help him into his wife’s bed. But since I was a guy, it felt okay for him to ask for my assistance. (He’d worked out a similar deal with the morning janitor to move him back to his bed the next morning.)

Now Martha was mostly blind, but when I’d help him over to her bed, I’d see this wonderful smile come over her face. She could no longer see him, so she was responding to the sound of her husband coming near and crawling into bed beside her. She beamed when she felt his arms enfold her. They were a part of the blessed few—Master-Level Lovers.

I thought that scene was the sweetest, most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. After all these years, I still think that.

Being a master-level lover is more about the heart than the sex we usually think of as being a master of love. When you analyze it, really, being a master-level lover is being full out. Not holding back. Giving 100% of what you have to give. If you play at 100%, there are no limitations.

Age, space and time cease to exist. This is what true romance is. And what’s good for the heart is good for the brain. What’s good for the brain is good for life itself.


The miracle is we can feel it any time we choose.




6 comments:

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    1. Yes, indeed, Judy. The most precious gift in the world. And then we get to give it back!!

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  2. Nice post Sharon I was reminded of two things. When I went to work in the afternoon a old man nearly 90 would got into our small town a couple of times a week he was still agile for is age, he always took his wife a surprise home sometimes it was a box of pretty tissues or a peach off the market stall. No matter what he took back she'd always hug and kiss don't for what he got but, just that he came back. Then I remembered my niece who's 41 laughing saying that her husband dying her hair was one of the most romantic things he could do for her

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    1. That's a beautiful story, Julie. I think having a man wash my hair would be divine. I totally agree with your niece. We could think of all the sexy things that could be done between a man and a woman, and not have any of them include real sex. The juice of life!!

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  3. That is the kind of love that everyone should have. Thanks for sharing this. My husband helped me wash my hair when I was unable take a shower due to my foot injury. I remember him setting stuff up around the house for me to make it easier on me while he was at work.

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    1. Isn't that the most wonderful thing about having a partner who is that attentive to all parts of your life? So happy for you. We are both lucky, Karen. Although, my husband would never wash my hair. Oh I wish he would!!

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