This Is a Love Story

by Jessica Soffer

Some people come to the Park because they want to fall in love for the first time, the twelfth time, the final time. Some have been used, widowed, or bored stiff. They have spent the past decade in deep introspection, falling in love with themselves—and no one else—first. Some come for a short respite—roughly twenty blocks west to east, east to west—from a spouse who will not help themselves or from no one home (she even took the dog; you can’t imagine the sudden quiet). The Park is a beating heart, an adagio, a dreamy parenthesis.

By the Seventy-Second Street entrance, Jane passes two men in khakis, shiny shoes, and crossed legs. They must think, she thinks, this is a very pregnant lady. I hope she doesn’t give birth here. They would never think: This is an artist. This is a woman who can make anything.

But is it better to have loved and lost or never to have visited the Park at all?

And yet, just when it feels like the whole world has gone insane, loveless, lovelorn—and it is just getting worse—the cherry blossoms bloom in the Park. Does it feel better in here? It does.

Some days, I’m not sure of where the memory ends and the story begins. Where the story ends and the writing begins. It’s a Möbius strip. And yet, the more life, the more memories. The more memories, though, the less life. There’s a mathematical equation in there somewhere. Or maybe just a mortal truth.

Out of nowhere you say: I think the saddest part of a novel is that you can’t take it in all at once.

Time moves in one direction and isn’t that really, really something.

You remember our love like a river, a rock, a fountain, a rainbow. You remember it as an August evening, the holidays, the first spring day. You remember it as sparkle, or maybe I do. Why not? We had our bumps. You remember it wasn’t always easy, but so often it was. How lucky are we?

The difference between stopping and ending is that one is intentional. Anything can be a beginning if you say it right. Any moment can be the end.