Endless love

Love may not always be sweet—sometimes it sings, sometimes it haunts, and sometimes it leaves us listening through the wall for what it really sounds like.

February brings Valentine’s Day, such a difficult holiday for some that even AI recognizes that and offers the online option to limit references to love. Still, love in all its forms is what drives us, and we all live in hope and despair of love. Research suggests that human beings live longer with love than without it.

One thing is for certain: love is the center of most songs – not only love songs.

An old friend whose bedroom shared a wall with an amorous couple once wrote to me, I don’t know what love is, but I know what it sounds like … And if you aren’t in love right now, at least you can know what it sounds like, with a small selection of love songs that I love:

• Sarah Brown Eyes from Ragtime, Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens
  

• God Only Knows by Brian Wilson for The Beach Boys
  

• Something by The Beatles
  

• In My Life by The Beatles
  

• I Will Always Love You by Dolly Parton
  

• Tonight from West Side Story by Stephen Sondheim
  

• Wonderful Tonight by Eric Clapton

• At Last by Etta James (and remember when you listen, the beautiful rendition sung by Beyoncé at the inauguration of President Barack Obama, when hope seemed possible …)
  

• A Case of You by Joni Mitchell
  

• (My personal favorite) The Way You Look Tonight by Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields, especially the version sung by Frank Sinatra (listen to the voice; ignore the character)
  

• Ain’t No Mountain High Enough by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell
  

• Love Makes the World Go Round by Bob Merrill for the Broadway show Carnival

• Misty by Erroll Garner (sung by Johnny Mathis)
  

• Try a Little Tenderness (written in 1932 by Jimmy Campbell, made famous in the 1966 soul version by Otis Redding)
  

• My Girl by The Temptations
  

• Stardust by Hoagy Carmichael and Mitchell Parish (1928 but still the gold standard)
  

• Unchained Melody by The Righteous Brothers
  

• My Funny Valentine by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart
  

• Harvest Moon by Neil Young

---

Hot Reading Tip

I know I’ve said this before, but there is no other contender: the craziest and most passionate love story of all time, Wuthering Heights, was written by Emily Brontë, a 31-year-old virgin pastor’s daughter in a remote parsonage in England who never had a date. As Cathy cries out to her confidante, Ellen Dean, speaking of her demon lover Heathcliff, “Whatever souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”

More than 20 major film adaptations have been made from this novel, more than any other novel, and the newest one premieres this week, with Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi. It’s been called everything from a soulless and fashion-driven bodice-ripper to a hallucinatory meditation on love. The BBC says that it underlines “the corrosive behavior that can result from thwarted desire. Jealousy, anger and vengeance … as natural to Cathy and Heathcliff as their endless passion for each other.”

In other words, all that comes from love may not be sweet.

---

Hot Life Tip

Like my friend with the apartment that had thin walls, I am not sure about everything when it comes to love, but I know this: the adage upon millions of refrigerator magnets is absolutely true: if you are looking for love, it will not come to you, but if you give up on it, the universe will go into high gear to bring it to you.

---

HOT RECIPE TIP

This will raise your temperature but not your cholesterol.

VEGETARIAN CHILI

• 1 tablespoon olive oil

• ½ medium onion, chopped

• 2 bay leaves

• 1 teaspoon ground cumin

• 2 tablespoons dried oregano

• 1 tablespoon salt

• 2 stalks celery, chopped

• 2 green bell peppers, chopped

• 2 jalapeño peppers, OPTIONAL

• 3 cloves garlic, chopped

• 2 (4-ounce) cans chopped green chile peppers, drained or 1 tablespoon red pepper

• 2 (12-ounce) packages vegetarian burger crumbles

• 3 (28-ounce) cans whole peeled tomatoes, crushed

• ¼ cup chili powder

• 1 tablespoon ground black pepper

• 1 (15-ounce) can kidney beans, drained

• 1 (15-ounce) can garbanzo beans, drained

• 1 (15-ounce) can black beans

• 1 (15-ounce) can whole-kernel corn

• 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa

Heat the olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Stir in the onion, and season with bay leaves, cumin, oregano, and salt. Cook and stir until the onion is tender, then mix in the celery, green bell peppers, jalapeño peppers, garlic, and green chile peppers.

When vegetables are heated through, mix in the vegetarian burger crumbles. Reduce heat to low, cover the pot, and simmer 5 minutes. Mix the tomatoes into the pot.

Season chili with chili powder and pepper. Stir in the kidney beans, garbanzo beans, and black beans. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, and simmer 45 minutes (or 15 minutes in an Instant Pot). Stir in the canned or frozen corn and continue cooking 5 minutes before serving.

---

For an unusual kind of love story – the love between lifelong friends that not even death can stop – you might try reading my newest novel, THE BIRDWATCHER, out just last December from HarperCollins.