I am attending a workshop with Michael Stone this weekend and at last night’s lecture, he mentioned that in his current book project he is musing on love. Well, not love in the rom/com way but more like intimacy. It wouldn’t have to be romantic, though that is generally what grown-ups in our culture focus on (that’s my opinion, by the way, not Stone’s).

Anyway, he said something I found interesting in light of all the backlash against Lori Gottleib’s new book which is essentially the perennial single woman’s dilemma in our brave new world.

Do I wait for Mr. Right or settle for Mr. Good Enough?

Stone says this*,

Love essentially is. It exists always around us. We, however, don’t notice  – or we deny it – because we can’t let go of our stories. These stories are those internal narratives we cling to in order to validate how we feel or to justify our lives and actions.

In other words, when a person is willing to simply get on with life and not worry about whether or not love will come into it in some way – it will show up. Mostly because it was there all along.

So, Gottleib’s argument – irritating as it is – makes sense. Women, and some men, have constructed such elaborate narratives to explain their continuing single state that they leave no room for perfectly wonderful people to become a part of their story.

And now, I am off to a five-hour asana practice**.

* I’m paraphrasing and oversimplifying in the process no doubt, but it isn’t far off what people’s married/couple friends constantly parrot, is it?

** Well, not the whole five hours. Practice will be about 2 ish with lots of demo stuff and talking about it after.