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10 Lessons Learned about Life from The Location Shoot
1. No one’s life is perfect. Everyone has challenges, fears, failings.
2. Laughter is key.
3. Be brave in art and in life.
4. Art imitates life.
5. Life inspires art.
6. Life is temporary. We can’t escape our mortality. We all reach the same inevitable conclusion, sooner than later. Yet there is so much beauty in this glorious life too.
7. Nature holds lessons.
8. Great sex is great.
9. True love has no reason.
10. Love is everything.
She paused and said, “Albie, tell them about how you met Margaret. It’s such a wonderful story. I’m sure everyone would love to hear it.”
“I would,” Finn said as he and Ella exchanged a smile.
“Me too,” Charlotte added. “In the many years we’ve known each other, I don’t think I’ve ever heard this story.”
Albie smiled. “All right,” he said. The waitstaff returned and passed around plates, each with a slice of tart and generous dollop of freshly made whipped cream.
They all began eating and Albie said, “I met her at a party in London thrown by some aristocrat. Completely pretentious. I was the lead in a play on the West End, and the director invited me. You know how that blue-blooded set loves to have a celebrity in their midst, something to gab about when they’re at their holiday homes.”
Everyone laughed.
Albie took a bite of his tart and continued, “I brought a girl with me, some actress, can’t even remember her name. We were all dressed in absurdly formal attire, could hardly tell the guests from the waitstaff, eating catered, crustless watercress sandwiches or some such rubbish. All of a sudden, in walks a stunningly beautiful woman wearing a simple, sky-blue frock and holding a pie. It’s hard to overstate how extraordinarily out of place she looked. I was immediately transfixed. She had the biggest, most beautiful eyes, and her hair fell in waves.” He paused, as if reliving every detail. “Anyway, the host’s wife ran over, greeted her, and ferried the pie over to the dessert table. I couldn’t take my eyes off this woman. The way she moved, her smile, the way her eyes sparkled when she laughed. I watched her for hours. I asked someone about her, and they said she was an elementary school teacher who happened to know the sister of the host. Eventually, I saw her standing alone at the dessert table and decided to make my move. The table was covered in mile-high meringues and fancy chocolate tortes encased in sugar domes, no doubt from the finest bakery in London, and there was her humble homemade pie off to the side. I sidled up to her and said, ‘Everything looks good.’ She smiled at me and I felt like I was struck by lightning. I picked up a plate and a serving utensil and said, ‘I think I’m going to try this one,’ and I took a slice of the blueberry pie. She looked at me and said, ‘I made that. To tell you the truth, I feel like a bit of a fool. I didn’t know what kind of party it was.’ I said, ‘I’m Albie, what’s your name?’ In her angelic voice, she said, ‘Margaret.’ I’ll tell you, I fell completely in love with her then and there.”
“What about your date?” Michael asked.
“Broke up with her at the party. I called a car for her and sent her home. Felt terrible about it, but when you meet the one, you can’t let anything stand in your way. True love is the greatest gift in the world; one mustn’t squander it or be foolish enough to think it will simply wait until it obliges our schedules.”
“So, it really was love at first sight,” Charlotte said wistfully.
“Indeed. Anyone who tells you that love at first sight isn’t real, well, those unlucky bastards have just never experienced it. Take it from an old fucker like me: when you get hit by lightning, you surrender to it. All the details, the little things you don’t know about each other, you’ll learn those over time, and if you really love each other, most of it won’t matter. There’s no replacing that inexplicable, inconvenient, all-encompassing feeling of love. Standing there in that moment, holding that slice of pie, I knew I couldn’t live without her. These days, people court each other like they’re applying for a job or running through a checklist. But this is where the artists—the poets, the novelists, the filmmakers—have always known better: true love has no reason.”
Location Shoot: https://www.amazon.com/Location-Shoot-Novel-Patricia-Leavy/dp/1647425670
Hollyland: https://www.amazon.com/Hollyland-Novel-Patricia-Leavy/dp/1647422965
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ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing. The blurb and excerpt sound really good.
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