The quote below has nothing to do with Bastille Day, but I just found it and wanted to share it with you all. It is how I feel about my husband, Tom. We spent Bastille Day together in Paris in 1999. Today, 2010, we will celebrate the day by eating fresh crepes with peach jam and drinking French press coffee in our kitchen in Chaska, MN. Eat your heart out, Paris.
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin
Louis de Bernieres
Love is a temporary madness,
it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides.
And when it subsides you have to make a decision.
You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together
that it is inconceivable that you should ever part.
Because this is what love is.
Love is not breathlessness,
it is not excitement,
it is not the promulgation of eternal passion.
That is just being “in love” which any fool can do.
Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away,
and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.
Those that truly love, have roots that grow towards each other underground,
and when all the pretty blossom have fallen from their branches,
they find that they are one tree and not two.
