Can love be locked in?

 I remember the first time I walked on a bridge in Europe and saw a bright array of padlocks engraved with names and dates.

This wasn’t a custom I was used to, so I walked slowly and looked at them all carefully. I could sense the promise that each one held, together with the plea that this love stay. Because obviously we have placed our lock on this bridge and thrown the key into the river.

This year, I’ve seen many locks on bridges and these on a wishing well in Nuremberg. But the interesting thing is that not many of the locks look new. Maybe this isn’t something people are doing anymore.

And maybe with good reason.

I’m thinking back to an autograph album I was given when I was 18 and an exchange student in a German High School. They called it a “Poesie Album” and people wrote rhymes and said things like “Bleib wie Du bist!” (“Stay as you are!”).

Of course that’s impossible. Things change. People change. Life brings both destruction and renewal. Perhaps what they meant to say was: “I see something beautiful in you and I hope you hold onto that, no matter what happens>”

Change is inevitable. Maybe all we can do is to seek to respond to it in the most conscious way possible, and tend to all those places that are acting from unconsciousness or blind habit.

We can awaken the best in ourselves and others and tend the wounds and the pain that cause us to act in ways that mean we are not our best. If everyone is simply doing the best they can, then I, at least, can try to do better.

I can look more deeply under my emotions to find out what stories are provoking them. There are certainly stories I’d rather not carry any longer. It’s time to put them down.

All our old tales tell us that at the crossroads, something needs to be put down so something else can be picked up.

It might not be as dramatic as it seems. Just one small step every day.

So can love be locked in?

No.

But it can be invited, longed for, dedicated to, called upon, practiced.

Love is a verb.

Let me act that way.

PS Got a questions about love? Come and play a Flow Game with me tomorrow or on June 29. See more here: https://www.getsoaring.com/pl/2148143649

#storyactivist #storytelling #love #FlowGame