Thoughtful encounter leads to musings about love

I hear her shout the man's name, and I look up from my convenience store gasoline pump to see a young woman running down the sidewalk toward the bus stop, clutching a paper bag. The man looks up and grins a million dollar smile, shaking his head the way you do when you realize a foolish oversight.

He motions to the driver to wait. The woman closes the distance and hands him the bag. They embrace. Kiss. He whops her on the butt as she turns, and he steps onto the bus. The door closes. She waves, and retraces her steps in the direction whence she came.

Methinks somebody forgot his lunch. But he won't be condemned to eating fat, salt and preservatives from a vending machine today, because this woman caught the mistake and ran to him.

I tell myself this young couple doesn't have a working car between them. Indeed, the woman is walking back toward a neighborhood of economically depressed apartments. I imagine they are only rich in love.

It's an amazing thing when somebody loves you. That is, if you will allow yourself to be amazed. I mean, on the one hand, it's such an ordinary part of the human experience. And the ordinariness of it sometimes keeps us from noticing it. Being astonished by it.

It seems to me that if someone is in love with you, that fact should regularly wallop you. Give you pause. Nail your feet to the floor. Fill you with wonder and gratitude. Which in turn will make it less likely that you will ever take that love for granted. Ever become blasé. Ever become entitled.

People who live consciously are quite clear that quality love relationships don't fall daily out of trees. Love isn't earned or deserved. And while this or that attribute might have initially attracted your lover -- hair, eyes, gait, carriage, physique, political views, humor, etc. -- in the end the gift of love is so much more than a mere reaction to attributes.

I'm saying that if your lover can provide perfunctory answers x, y and z to the question "Why do you love me?" then I would wonder about said love. Because love is a happening. Not an equation. The correct answer is a provocative smile, shrug of the shoulders and "I just do."

I'm reminded of the fictional college professor Dr. Harry Wolper, played by Peter O'Toole in the 1985 movie "Creator." His student assistant, Boris, is sweet on a girl. Boris asks the eccentric Dr. Wolper how he would know if he were in love. I paraphrase the professor's response: "Well, you can always apply the Wolper Love Formula, whereby you calculate the number of times each day you think about her. Then you compare that number to the number of times each day you think about yourself. If the first number is greater than the second, there's an excellent chance that you're in love."

Which, in turn, reminds me of my all-time favorite definition of love. Favorite because of its purity. Simplicity. It was penned by Richard Bach in the book "Illusions": "Love is a wish for someone's happiness."

Yet, I feel the need to tinker with Bach's definition. I would say it's more than a wish. It's a wish, yes, but also the evident and consistent willingness to participate toward the end of your beloved's happiness. You're willing to work for it. You're intentional. You make someone else's deepest happiness the source of your deepest happiness. Yes, sometimes bringing happiness to your mate is a spontaneous, easy joy. Other times you make sacrifices.

You run like the wind, for example -- hair askew, without makeup or decorum -- to your neighborhood bus stop, clutching a lunch bag and shouting your beloved's name.

Steven Kalas is a behavioral health consultant and counselor at Clear View Counseling Wellness Center in Las Vegas and the author of "Human Matters: Wise and Witty Counsel on Relationships, Parenting, Grief and Doing the Right Thing" (Stephens Press). His columns appear on Sundays. Contact him at skalas@reviewjournal.com.