How do I know when it’s love?

Van Halen asked this musical question on the album OU812 in 1988.

In the second novel of my work in progress that I wrote last year, two of my male characters meet when they work on a project together in 1969.

That sounds dull. Let me punch it up a little.

The Musician will be writing the score for the Director’s next film. Having met for the first time in Toronto a couple of days earlier, they take a ride in the Musician’s VW van to Niagara Falls to look at scenery. In the course of a conversation, the Director advises the Musician that he’ll know it’s love when he finds the girl who’ll be allowed to paint, hippie style, his unembellished van.

I thought of that scene when I saw two of the pages in the “Whimsey Girls Through the Decades” coloring book Marika sent. (Each Whimsey Girl is featured with and without a detailed background.)

This was the first drawing I colored.


And in 1974, the Musician believes he may have found her. Could this happen?

You look at every face in a crowd
Some shine and some keep you guessing
Waiting for someone to come into focus…

Though my writing came somewhere between Van Halen and the coloring book, you never know what lyric, scent, image, overheard comment, or person will inspire or be woven into your creativity. Keep your senses and possibilities open to receiving.

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