THE THINGS WE DO FOR LOVE

If you’re one of those people that think that love is the answer to having complete and total happiness and satisfaction in life, then we would do anything to have it…right?

You’d think! But love isn’t that easy to find even if love is just down the street. What if you’re not even carrying the same passport? And when conflicts arise in a relationship, what happens then? But I get ahead of myself…plenty of time for relationship matters…compromises to endure and persevere, for better or for worse.

What I’m talking about is when you do find love and you have to pursue, and to orchestrate and facilitate and go way out of your way for love…those are the things we do for.
I once took a 36 hour plane ride from Kathmandu, via stops in India and then to Moscow. There was a free breakfast at four in the morning, with big beefy and mean looking soldiers armed in the Moscow airport. Then a plane ride to Paris, a train ride to Grenoble and a taxi to an apartment in the banlieue. There, what I thought was love waiting for me, was a letter telling me to go away. I didn’t. The things we do for love.


In OVERLAND, Danny does the most incredible and maybe dim things for love. But in the end, it was all worth it!

Mark Stephen Levy published his novel Overland in 2009, a fictional account of an American stranded in Kabul, Afghanistan on December, 27, 1979 the day the Soviets invade.

THE LAST MAGIC BUS

What would first come to mind reading these words is one of greatest hits towards the end of the 1960’s from the rock group The Who, Magic Bus: “Get on the bus that takes me to you”, was a key line from the song.

The real Magic Bus was an old rickety bus that traveled from Europe overland all the way to Kathmandu, the capital city of Nepal, covering a distance of over 5000 miles. To compare, the US from coast to coast is 3000 miles. You can imagine there are multiple countries and cultures along this long and circuitous route. Interest in the “magical and mysterious east” was initiated when The Beatles flew to India to meditate in the Himalayas with the guru of the 1960’s, the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The Maharishi introduced the Transcendental Meditation technique, which was part of the overall Cultural Revolution of the 1960’s, and beyond.

Of course The Beatles were the definitive culture setters’ and soundtrack of the times. Their trip to India set the stage and opened the cultural door for disenchanted Westerners to head east. Money was an object, so flying was not an option. The Magic Bus became a conduit to go east “on the cheap”.
Along the way, the bus would pass through Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and finally Nepal. It was a long way away, geographically, culturally and spiritually from the west. Once in Kathmandu, and various Himalayan towns, and coastal beaches of India, returning home wasn’t an option either. Stories of burying their passports emerged, settling in, staying put, or roaming around…in the east.


In the book OVERLAND, Heather had the call of the east. She rejected Danny’s proposal to marry her, and decided to take the Magic Bus to Kathmandu. But the year was 1979, and the world was changing. What was this lure that compelled Heather so much to take “the last” Magic Bus? Of course she didn’t know it at the time that it was to be the last run…but it was. What happened? What caused her bus to be the last one? History, history happened. And she and Danny got caught up in it.
I wonder: has anybody ever ridden the original Magic Bus? Has anybody ever been caught up in the front end of history?

Comments are welcome…

To view the OVERLAND book trailer, please link to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGnjRx4gHSI

LOVE- LOST AND FOUND

I think finding a lost love has become somewhat of a phenomenon. Have you ever wondered what EVER happened to your boyfriend or girlfriend from high school or college? Or even in your jobs and life in your 20’s or 30’s, or 40’s? With the plethora of internet social networking sites, mainly Facebook, this has become extremely possible.



TIME magazine recently had a similar article about this very same subject. Their summation that for the most part, is better to leave those stones unturned. Maybe ten, twenty, or thirty years have passed since you last laid eyes on each other. Back then, maybe you were just friends and wanted each other, but circumstances were in the way and now’s the time. The one thing is certain: you are each ten, twenty or thirty years older. How has time treated you? Would it be a disappointment to see each other so many years later? Would you even want to know and allow the younger image etched in your head stay as is? Or would it be the most incredible thing for some fantasy come to life? So many technical and theoretical questions!


And here’s a most interesting prospect: What if you weren’t expecting to find your lost love, and suddenly, voila, there they are. What would you do, and how would you react? Again, more theoretical and this time, emotional questions. But they’re good ones. As you ponder and dwell on this prospect from your own life, I raise the question because in OVERLAND, there is a very pivotal scene as I just described.

Danny, our main character in OVERLAND, had been jilted by his long time girlfriend Heather. He wanted to marry her, but she decided to travel overland on a Magic Bus from London to Kathmandu instead….WHY? She has her motivations, perhaps justified, but Danny refuses to accept the rejection and decides to track her down, and go all the way to Kathmandu if he has to just to find her.

In OVERLAND, circumstances ultimately lead Danny to the discovery of his lost love. And it’s not Heather. How does he respond, and what does he do?
I invite each and every one of you reading this post, to find out how Danny reacts to such an event, something so random, so unexpected. You will be incredibly surprised and delighted to know ultimately what evolves into a love story for the ages!

Oh yes…if you have a story such as a discovered, reunited and evolving lost love found, and you’d like to declare, I think we would all want to know…comments are encouraged!

Provocative Excerpt from OVERLAND

A provocative piece from the book:

Heather was in a crowd of other Western travelers, some of them from the Magic Bus ride from Istanbul. They’d been gathered together by the Afghani army and were now being ordered on to buses. She tried to head back to the center of the city towards Danny, but armed Afghani soldiers hampered her effort. She saw the older couple who sang for them in the Iranian desert, fearful and running to get on one of the five buses that appeared to be waiting for them.

“What’s going on?” She asked them

“Just get on the bus!” The man was terrified.

They leapt onto the bus. But Heather hesitated. She couldn’t leave, not without Danny. She took two steps back towards the center of the city, and the Afghani soldiers forced her back towards the buses.

“Why are you doing this, what gives you the right?” Her protests led to more force from the soldiers. She witnessed terror in their eyes. Something was definitely happening. She pleaded with them that she needed to go back.

“No Miss, get on the bus, now.” They blocked her way and turned her around, pushing her onto the bus with the barrels of their guns.

Heather had just placed her foot on the first step of the bus when a bomb blast rocked the city. A shockwave quaked the ground. The sound of the explosion was horrific. Life went to chaos then seemed to stand still. All around, people collapsed onto the ground, jarred by the impact of the explosion. The center of the blast issued up from the direction where Heather thought Danny went. She was shaking, maybe screaming his name. No one was hurt around her. The impact from the bomb had been far enough away not to do them damage, yet, close enough that they could smell the pungent smoke wafting through the area. Gunfire and screams, and more gunfire could be heard resonating throughout the entire city.

Chaos and panic had descended. People ran for their lives, shouting, terrified of that war had come to Kabul. Heather never felt so helpless. She desperately wanted to find Danny. But the Afghani soldiers were intense, forceful. They gave her no option. If she wanted to save her life, she had to do what they ordered, and that was to board the bus, and fast.

Smoke drifted throughout the entire region. Heather became more and more despondent. She cried out, feeling powerless. She couldn’t believe she was being forced to leave Danny. She knew nothing of his condition.

Reluctantly she took the last seat on the bus. The engines revved up, and the Afghani soldiers advised all five buses to move out. Out of Kabul and out of Afghanistan.

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