Perhaps Love

  "When we usually say 'love story' we imagine, maybe, a story about, people getting together. We're usually talking about courtship stories. This isn't a love story in that sense."  ~Kazuo Ishiguro, novelist
 
        In Ishiguro's  book the "The Buried Giant", an aging couple must try to make it to a mystical island by boat to find their son. In order  to reach this island a boatman tell them,
"Only those couples who can prove to the boatman that their love is perfect and true, without bitterness or jealousy or shame, can cross the water together, in the same boat, to the island."

    John Denver's song about love is full or puzzles and riddles:

"Perhaps love is like an ocean full of conflict, full of pain."

  In Denver's interview below, before he sings "Perhaps Love" live, he describes his own personal life and marriage that ended in divorce. His personal love story seems to be similar to the love described by Ishiguro.

    Can love always survive? Can love overcome the conflict? These questions are huge and not easy to tackle or understand. 

    Love and the memory of love are our best defenses against the torrent ocean. 

There are no guarantees that any of us will reach the island. The trip itself is what is most important. In any language the sentiments of the song seems to be its universal appeal.