As 2024 draws to a close I wanted to share with you my current reading as it encapsulates so much about what love is and isn’t and how everyone has a love story to tell if we would only listen. The author, Trent Dalton, creates an inviting space for passer-bys on a street corner in Brisbane city. He sits at a little table with an old fashioned type writer and a spare seat beside him, the sign propped against the table says “Sentimental writer collecting love stories”. As someone passes or spontaneously sits down beside him, he asks “do you have a love story?” Then he listens (and types). He crafts together a tapestry of love stories weaving in fragments of his own life and loves without taking away from the story teller. There is no one answer. There is no prize winning story, better than all the others.
The collection of love stories from people from all walks of life is inspiring and sometimes heart breaking. Dalton shows how listening and being with a stranger is an opportunity to give love and he notes that the passer by usually gives far more love to him than he offers in return.
I read just one chapter, “Buried treasure”, to convey the beauty of peoples’ stories or in one instance - Crew cut man (they didn’t get to exchange names) - his not following through with a threat to smash Trent’s head into the concrete.
It is not a theory of love that matters most. It is each person’s way of expressing love and making sense of their lives in terms of what it says about love, that matters always. At the same time Dalton’s book reminds me of how we are all theorists of love.
Full details of the book are:
Dalton, T. (2021). Love stories. Sydney: Fourth Estate.
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