The Forty Rules of Love: a novel of Rumi

Ella
NORTHAMPTON, JUNE 15, 2008
Beloved Ella,
You asked me how I became a Sufi. It didn’t happen overnight.
I was born Craig Richardson in Kinlochbervie, a harbor village in the Highlands of Scotland. Whenever I think about the past, I
fondly remember the fishing boats, their nets heavy with fish and strands of seaweed dangling like green snakes, sandpipers scurrying
along the shore pecking at worms, ragwort plants growing in the most unexpected places, and the smell of the sea in the background,
sharp and salty. That smell, as well as those of the mountains and lochs, and the dreary tranquillity of life in postwar Europe composed
the background against which my childhood was set.
While the world tumbled heavily into the 1960s and became the scene of student demonstrations, hijackings, and revolutions, I was
cut off from it all in my quiet, green corner. My father owned a secondhand-book store, and my mother raised sheep that produced
high-quality wool. As a child I had a touch of both the loneliness of a shepherd and the introspectiveness of a bookseller. Many days I
would climb an old tree and gaze out at the scenery, convinced that I would spend my whole life there. Every now and then, my heart
would constrict with a longing for adventures, but I liked Kinlochbervie and was happy with the predictability of my life. How could I
know that God had other plans for me?
Shortly after I turned twenty, I discovered the two things that would change my life forever. The first was a professional camera. I
enrolled in a photography class, not knowing that what I saw as a simple hobby would become a lifelong passion. The second was love
—a Dutch woman who was touring Europe with friends. Her name was Margot.
She was eight years my elder, beautiful, tall, and remarkably headstrong. Margot regarded herself as a bohemian, an idealist, a
radical, a bisexual, a leftist, an individualist anarchist, a multiculturalist, a human-rights advocate, a counterculture activist, an ecofeminist
—labels I couldn’t even define should one ask me what they meant. But I had early on observed that she was one more thing: a
pendulum woman. Capable of swinging from extreme joy to extreme depression in the span of a few minutes, Margot had
unpredictability written all over her. Always furious at what she construed as “the hypocrisy of the bourgeois lifestyle,” she questioned
every detail in life, waging battles against society. To this day it is still a mystery to me why I did not run away from her. But I didn’t.
Instead I let myself get sucked into the whirling vortex of her animated personality. I was head over heels in love.
She was an impossible combination, full of revolutionary ideas, unbridled courage, and creativity, yet as fragile as a crystal flower. I
promised myself to stay by her side and protect her not only from the outside world but also from herself. Did she ever love me as
much as I loved her? I don’t think so. But I know she did love me in her own self-centered and self-destructive way.
This is how I ended up in Amsterdam at the age of twenty. We got married there. Margot dedicated her time to helping refugees
who had found themselves in Europe for political or humanitarian reasons. Working for an