When Life Takes an Unexpected Turn…Part One

August 20, 2012 by Owls and Orchids

Happiness is a smiling face

Image courtesy of zastavki.com

“We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves.”
― Dalai Lama XIV

Nothing conjures up a smile faster than seeing the happiness in another persons eyes. It cannot be faked, it either is or it is not. The eyes are most certainly “the window to the soul”: an old english proverb. If you look into a persons eyes you can immediately tell if they are truly happy or if they are simply putting on a facade, look carefully and you can see the shadow of unhappiness if it isn’t real. Take it from one who knows. I’ve had those wonderous moments when your world is filled with glorious happiness, nothing can go wrong and you are in love with life, and often someone else. Love is wonderful, it can be the love of a partner, a child, a parent or sibling , or if you are fortunate, a true friend. It isn’t essential to be in love with a person, it can be a beloved pet, and quite often it is the simple beauty of your surroundings that plucks at the heart-strings and you cannot help but smile from pure joy. It can even be the unalloyed pleasure of doing something you truly love.

For many years I had the pleasure of a shared passion of tapestry with my mother. We would talk tapestry, canvasses, colours, threads and derived enormous happiness in showing off a finished piece of work. I have a number of her pieces framed and hanging in my home. They evoke many beautiful memories of long talks and laughter. Now that she is no longer with me they bring her closer to me and for that I am eternally grateful. It is a small grace in a mountain of sadness and it took a long time before I gained that appreciation . For quite a while they evoked a deep sadness, and I began to wonder if I would ever be able to see them without reliving her loss. I am genuinely happy to say that time has passed, and whilst I still miss her desperately, I can look at them and remember the joy we shared in our joint passion.

Rose bowl tapestry

Image courtesy of artsanddesigns.com

Yet love takes so many forms and for as many delights which can be found, there are, unfortunately, as many painful mementoes of its passing through our life.

“But to see her was to love her, love but her, and love for ever” by Robert Burns “Ae fond kiss, and then we sever”.

One of the most often talked about and written about time of our lives, is when ‘true love’ has finally reached your door. Yet, there are many cynics who do not believe that love is a reality at all but simply an animal magnetism harking back to our origins when the urge to procreate and thus ensure the survival of the species was paramount. I believe that time has passed. I also believe that for some, indeed for quite a number, love has lost its ‘magic’ and has become commonplace, so commonplace that it has lost a great deal of its power to move people.
There are many stories told of how a meeting of the eyes was the moment when two people realised they were in love, a love so deep and true that they would spend the rest of their days together. I know of one such story.

These two were no teenagers, confused between the animal lust and the steadier and stronger feelings of love, not that the burning feelings of love didn’t stir both heart and mind! She had been married before, twice,and, as the story usually goes, unhappily. The only thing she felt she had to show for two decades of compromise and unhappiness was two children who had become strong, self-reliant individuals who knew how life could be and also what it could be if done right. So she reconciled herself that her ‘life’ as such was relatively over and after finally finding her ‘freedom’ had decided to find a nice place, away from the stress and pressure of daily drama and become an “old maid”, talking to her cat and knitting in her rocking chair. This is not to say she was old, that was how beaten down by the vicissitudes of life she had become. She needed a place and peace to find herself again.

Sad and lonely

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Yet deep within still lurked this old dream of her ‘true love’, a man, tall and dark haired, with hazel eyes. An unlikely combination. It was almost a repeat of Sandra Bullock’s wish in Practical Magic; unlikely to be found, but there none the less. Into our strange tale comes an unexpected stranger. Should she meet him or not? All the reasons to stay far away float though her mind. Why should this person be any different from the others, and all the others she had heard tell of? For all that she had been through, all that she had heard, she disliked with a passion anyone saying she had been afraid to do something and so she agreed to meet, for a simple and safe cup of coffee. After all what can happen over a cup of coffee in a public place? So the date was set and the day arrived, and every minute leading up to the appointed meeting time she debated on the wisdom of meeting this person who she didn’t really know.

richard castle
At the precise moment he came into view she was making her way, from the opposite direction, to the coffee shop. Three feet away from each other as he is started to speak, she blurts”You have hazel eyes”! Magic happens! Cupid’s arrow struck and found its mark. It truly did. A brief coffee meeting became an invitation to dinner, followed by more coffee’s and more dinner’s and movies. He was charming, a gentleman He opened her car door, in fact any door for her. He carried her parcels and delighted in the simple things, making a drink or chauffeuring her around. Being in each others company was easy. He could start a sentence and without thinking she was already finishing it for him. He could be thinking something and she would suddenly begin to talk about it. It was almost as if they had developed a kind of telepathy, the kind you hear many ‘old married couples’ talking about when they have ben together so long they know each other so well they can do that sort of thing with ease. Yet this was only a new relationship and it added to the wonder of the situation.

He also had been looking for someone to share his life with. A failed marriage and a couple of failed relationships had left him battered and ‘gun shy’. He found it difficult to believe this was real, that this was going to last. Two battered people who had found exactly what they had always wished for, hoped for but scared it was an illusion. Would their pasts rear their ugly heads and make a new life impossible? Were there any deep dark secrets or skeletons hidden in closets to come out and destroy peace of mind? What was the next chapter of their story to be – wedded bliss or an upheaval of mammoth proportions? Will true love win out as it does in the stories?

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