I don’t normally write about love, but…

When Good Housekeeping magazine’s Associate Editor Bubbles Santos contacted me for an interview a few months ago (it came out in the November-December 2007 issue), it was followed by another request. Would I write a short article for the Valentine issue? I said, why not? I had forgotten all about it until I saw copies of Good Housekeeping on the supermarket stands last the other night. We were shopping for ingredients for Alex’s birthday merienda and there it was with the cover all red.

I don’t normally write about love or anything mushy (with the exception perhaps of the few maudlin entries I’ve written about my daughters). But I’m pretty happy about what I wrote for the Valentine issue of Good Housekeeping. Love that is not blind, love that tries to distinguish itself from other emotions, love that is neither masochistic nor imbued with pretentious self-sacrifice.

The article is one of eight essays, published as “The Truth About Love.” I just read it this morning and made a pleasant discovery.

Bubbles Santos wrote one of the eight essays and she talked about her coming wedding. It is a beautiful piece that looks at marriage in a way that, for me, every wife-to-be ought to. Romantic without being illusory and accepting of differences between partners without being judgmental — the words of a woman who knows the difference between the wedding and the marriage. Best wishes, Bubbles. I don’t know if you read blogs — I just want to make a public statement about how I feel about your truth about love.