Laboratory of Love, Part 2:

Discovering the Candy Store

To see the full overview of The Path, click here.)

In Part 1 we meet our heroine picking up the pieces of a failed experiment in the Laboratory of Love and heading onto a meandering path in a dark wood. She has just heard a new voice. If you missed the beginning, you can read it here.

As I cleaned up the fallout from my failed love experiment, I began to find clues. Amidst the debris I found a fragment from the beaker with hairline cracks that looked like they might have been there before the explosion; a Google search revealed the explosive nature of the contents of the beaker, and informed me that the bunsen burner had been set too high. Worst of all, an evaluation of me, the bespectacled lab rat, found me grossly undereducated and following a recipe yellowed with age.

Sifting through the burnt chaos, a foiled candy wrapper, still crinkly and bright, looked completely out of place and reminded me of the weird candy store, just inside the tangled Intentional Friendship Forest. I had only been on the path a short while when I saw bright lights glowing in the distance, a sweet, twinkling Kinkade cottage, wafting a sweetness that drew me in. Beguiling music drifted through the aisles where tables piled high with heart-shaped treats offered a feast and neon signs read, "take me," "happiness here," "you deserve it."

With uncontrolled yearning, I had started filling my ever present lab beaker, randomly picking this and that. Of course I wanted connection, and three servings of intimacy, please. I grabbed bags of conversation and comfort mixed with appreciation and magical promises of hugs and kisses, stuffing my beaker with abandon, oblivious to the hairline cracks that appeared as I shoved expectations and fairy tale fantasies into the mix.

Pausing for just a moment to see what else I wanted, I had noticed two gnomes sitting in a corner nodding their approval. One held up a copy of Sam Keen's book To Love and Be Loved, pointing to the words:

"LOVE has become the secular equivalent of the Holy Grail -- the magic treasure that should save us."

I remember my voice echoing off the frosted-sugar walls, “I want that!”

Then I saw the other gnome hold up Anam Cara by John O'Donohue and words melted like chocolate into my mind:

"LOVE is absolutely vital for human life. For LOVE alone can awaken what is divine within you. In LOVE, you grow and come home to yourself. When you learn to LOVE and to let yourself be loved, you come home to the hearth of your own spirit."

"YES! That's it!" I snatched up the books, stuffed them into my backpack along side my overflowing beaker and beelined it back to the laboratory, an alchemical mission in mind.

There, I grabbed the promised sure-fire recipe, poured the words from the books into the fuel line, stirred the sugary concoction together with hopes and wishes found in the debris pile of my past, as well as the rumored promises of a happily ever after future, and lit the fire.

You already know what happened after that. The explosion singed my eyebrows, blew me backwards, and sent glass splinters flying, some of which stung a gentle soul who was standing by just trying to help.

It took days to clean up the mess and I wasn't sure I wanted to try another experiment any time soon, so I wandered outside, feeling lost and alone, and found myself once again on that pathway leading to the Intentional Friendship Forest. I didn't intend to go that way again but I saw a little sign I had missed before. It read:

"Turn left at the candy store. Do not enter: dangerous."

"No problem," I thought. "Definitely not going there again."

I started to turn around when I saw one of the gnomes. I picked up a rock to throw at him, but hesitated when I saw a yellow daffodil in one hand and another copy of Anam Cara in the other. One word glowed with fire: FRIENDSHIP. I squinted and more came into focus:

"Real FRIENDSHIP or love is not manufactured or achieved by an act of will or intention. FRIENDSHIP is always an act of recognition."

"What does that mean?" I called, but the gnome disappeared into the forest. I had no choice but to follow him; I had to know what those words meant.

I ran and ran until I could run no more and then collapsed on a rock. I wanted to cry. The forest was dark and I was lost and scared, alone. A branch snapped, startling me and then I heard a voice.

"I wondered if I would find you here."

(to be continued)

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