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Can Love Build a Bridge?

An art historian. Her favorite genius from another century. Can love build a bridge between them through time?

Love conquers all—or as I like to think of it, love always wins. Conquering time is nothing for love. I have proof in that anyone I’ve ever loved is alive and present within me, and I can find them through time anytime I want to.

Some people might think this is fantasy—in other words, wishful thinking. But fiction and truth have a complicated relationship. You might say it’s a long, complicated marriage, for truth is never far from the best fiction. And history is never really far from the present, though sometimes we might forget that fact.

The history of your own life is full of love, and those tend to be the moments that stand out. Whether it’s a love for something, someone, or an activity, those feelings keep us going, keep us moving forward and wanting to see what the future brings. I believe that’s the most important sort of time-bridge: the arc of love.

Books build time-bridges for us all the time, especially books involving history or set in a historical period other than the present. They bring people to us who no longer exist and yet who become vivid parts of our lives. I feel I’ve met Bernini in having written to fully about him, down to the details of the dusty, frayed cuffs on his shirts from carving marble. When I read T.H. White’s Once and Future King, I felt I was meeting King Arthur—whether or not he ever really existed. These are unforgettable meetings because they involve love in some way, love of what the person did, meant to us, or could have meant.

Having lost people in my life, I’ve discovered that I never lost the love that existed between us. So, time has a certain quality of not existing, not in terms of the most real moments in my life, whether they were literary or personal. Love always wins.

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*Guest post by the Rachel Dacus Team*

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