Falling out of love

It is often said that people fall in love.  Certainly when I was younger I thought this was how it was done.  I fell in love with a crazy poet who kicked out a low window in a university building late at night to gain access to the auditorium’s dusty Steinway so he could play me the ballad he had written.  I fell in love with a leggy boy with wolfish eyes.  I fell in love with him the first time I saw him walk confidently into the room.

What all that was, I don’t know, but I wouldn’t now call it love. These days, I would say that people don’t fall in love, they climb steadily into it.

It’s not unlike a ladder, a tall one.  Those first few steps are easy and exciting, but there is a correlation between height and instability.  Whatever you do, don’t look down.  If there is any falling involved in love, it is in the end.  People may not fall in love, but they sure do fall out of it, often with a graceless thud.

Note to self: Don’t go climbing rickety old ladders.