Arrive to a Place in the Middle

“I think this idea that we meet one person and you stay with them your whole life until you die, for me, is unrealistic. I’ve loved a lot of people at many different times in my life. And the love doesn’t stop when we’re not together. And I feel as though, I’ve come to a place in my life, where the climax isn’t watching the love arrive, it’s watching the love in full. Just like our life goes in a cycle, that song has a descension which is just as beautiful as the middle. And in fact, the metaphor that I gave was the same. It was, arrive to a place in the middle where you watch everything in its radiance, you watch the beauty, it unfolds like a flower. And then, you watch it descend. And there’s just as much beauty in watching something recede into the soil as there is watching it come back because that’s full. And I feel the same way about love. So I feel no loss when love leaves because it truly never goes anywhere, and I feel no joy when it sticks around because honestly I kind of like to sleep alone now and then.”

~ Melody Gardot, in conversation with Bob Edwards (July 11, 2009)