Getting ready for a book and DVD tour.
My husband and I bought a camper van from our friend Philip, a car dealer in Eugene, Oregon, and while the camper was still parked near Philip’s house I spent a few days learning how to drive it before setting off on my first crosscountry book and DVD tour. One afternoon I was in the camper when I saw a man across the street talking to, then hugging and kissing a woman near the woman’s car. I thought, “Oh, they’re Philip’s neighbors, and the wife must be leaving her dear husband for a business trip.” Two hours later, when the two of them finally drove off in separate cars, I suddenly understood I’d witnessed a paramours’ rendezvous. Later, Philip’s wife Divya told me that both the man and the woman are married, work in the same office, and come to that spot near her home daily – sometimes twice a day.
Beneath towering dark firs at the end of a quiet street, a couple jeopardizes their status quo in their family, at work, and in society for the overpowering dance of a happiness called love. This innermost need for completion, excitement, joy, for deep and requited emotion is the topic of uncounted songs, stories, sculptures, plays, poetry, paintings, dramas, films, and fantasies. It’s a need within all of us, yet the love that fulfills it is notoriously elusive and fleeting. Strange phenomenon, that.
Below, Amrita and Priya surviving our first winter.