I adore when I hear or read a line that makes me want to whip out my notebook and write it down, or reach for the highlighter and drag that neon orange marker across the page like I’m back in college sitting front row getting my nerd on. And these lines aren’t always the best written, or the most lyrical, or even the most thought-provoking. They’re just lines that made me think about something. In Alice Hoffman’s The Museum of Extraordinary Things, Maureen (the housekeeper) says, “Love is odder than anything you might find here.”
I get it. This line might not sound like much. But I like it. Let me put it in context. Maureen’s life revolves around a self-serving man who buys and exploits humans with unique DNA and charges others to enter his museum to view these “strange” creatures including a mermaid, a wolfman, and a butterfly girl. So, out of all of this, it’s love that Maureen refers to as odd?
If you were Maureen and were surrounded by strange things every day, like a talking dog or a Brit with perfect teeth, where would “love” fit in on the “odd” scale? That’s what I started to think about. Just how odd is love and is it relative to our surroundings? I think about my current home, my lack of a love life, and the home I grew up in, and given those contexts, I have a different response for each.
Right now, I live with my sister and her family. Although they have some odd things in their home – including a life-size mannequin that’s dressed as a Buffalo Bills fan, a Tennessee Vols fan, or Uncle Eddie depending on the season, there’s nothing odd about the love under this roof. The love in this family is how family love is supposed to be: goofy, fun, unconditional, emotional, and it exists in many forms.
My love life love? Well, yeah, that’s odd mainly because I can’t make sense of it. It’s up, down, and all around. It’s there one minute and gone the next. It’s hot red and then dull gray. It’s as real as the sky is blue and as fleeting as birds in the winter. And my truest love married another even though we both admit our hearts belong together. So yes, Maureen, love sure is an odd thing.
About my childhood home. Well, love existed but it was mean sometimes. I walked on eggshells because I lived with someone whose moods were erratic. At all costs, I wanted to avoid her screams, so I’d tuck away my feelings because what if I said the wrong thing? When you’re young, you don’t know any better, and I began to equate love with anxiety, because my home was riddled with both. So yes, Maureen, love sure is an odd thing because I fear some don’t know how to show it, or some love themselves more than others, and some have never been loved in the right way.
How about you? Do you agree with Maureen? Is love odder than anything you know? Is it both odd and the greatest gift we have to share? No matter how odd it is, or the context in which it’s shared, I know one thing for sure: it’s something we can all work on giving better, receiving more wholly, and I wouldn’t want to live in a world without it.
