With utmost respect for Nobel prize-winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez, I took creative license with the title of his novel, Love in the Time of Cholera.
It is astonishing to be living in this odyssey, this vicissitude of life that has changed everything of what we expect from a “normal” day in life. This new coronavirus has upended everything in this world, including love, however my POV is positive.
Pulitzer-winning author, Jeffrey Eugenides wrote the introduction to—and compiled the collection of love stories in—My Mistress’s Sparrow is Dead, an anthology penned by both celebrated and lesser-known authors from the past 120 years. In his introduction, Eugenides writes, “The perishable nature of love is what gives love its profound importance in our lives. If it were endless, if it were on tap, love wouldn’t hit us the way it does.” However, let me emphasize that his book is about love stories and not love per se. Love stories contain the highs and the lows, the banal and the beautiful, the agony and the ecstasy.
Personally, I’m holding the purest manifestation of love: Charlotte, my month-old granddaughter.
The modern world is constantly demanding our attention, pulling us away from one task to another, often the two coinciding with the same deadline or more likely emphasized with equal “required and immediate attention.”
Each infant is an open canvas awaiting the variegated hues and tones of nurturing, empathy, culture and all that is life. It’s been said so many times before, but one shouldn’t lose an opportunity to be “in the moment.” And holding this beloved granddaughter is about as cool as any moment I’ve experienced.
What are your moments of love in this time of COVID-19?
Carlo Centeno 