What do you think about when you think about love?
Is it those big moments, the hallmark card ones, the chapter headings of successive stages of relationships? First kiss, anniversary, proposals, marriage, babies born. Do fights enter into this catalogue? Does divorce? A wedding is just another day of love, though one plagued with over priced pomp and circumstance and the pressured expectation of happiness, and, I suppose, the public declaration of love for one another. But, do you feel more love on that day, the one of public declaration and too much make up and overbearing relatives, then you do on any other day that hopefully contains private decelerations? On the day your baby is born do you feel more love than other days as you watch it grow?
Is love those elusive moments, little incandescent moments of joy that you feel with and for another person, indescribable, when your heart clenches and expands to include the whole universe all at once? The incongruous moments that appear out of nowhere— running to cross a street in a night full of light, of laughter. Kissing his forehead, his tears on your lips. Watching her talk about something she loves, her animation animating you until you feel, with so much life in your soul, that you could do anything, anything at all; and you choose to smile at her.
Is love those sweet habits built up of trust and years full of fears and hopes, that culminate in the smallest and most mundane activities saturated with a subtle love, a mellower one that nonetheless sets the rhythm of days after days, so reliable it ceases to be remarkable except that it is, it is. Constancy, I suppose. Breakfast together, the sun warm and your hand on her ankle where her foot is tucked under your leg; you both are reading. A song that comes on in the car and you both just listen, or maybe sing, and there is no talking for the whole entire ride because what has to be said? When he says, every night, as he has forever, “Good night.” And then, always, “I love you.”
Or is love not the special days and moments but the incalculable things, the immeasurable ones, the illogical and undefinable. Trust. Safety. Joy. Comfort. Happiness. Longing. Hunger. And on the other side of the coin— or perhaps not, perhaps they are on the same side, good and bad all mixed up together because can they ever really be separated? Or indeed categorized even as “good” and “bad?” Perhaps they simply are; elements of love; immutable. Patience. Sacrifice. Understanding. Support. Compromise. Jealousy. Pain.
Do you think of physical love? I do. Is love kisses that rain across an upturned face and hands that softly caress, sometimes with purpose, sometimes with none— hands simply acting as hands do and of their own accord. Is love great sex, bodies falling together towards an edge, as close as close can possibly physically be, hearts trying to beat each other out of opposing chests as breath is shared and sweat is shared and skin is shared and! Is that love? Or after, is that love? Being held as darkness falls, sitting outside the air is turning colder but neither of you makes to move because the now of this moment is so precious, the holding and the being held is so precious, and all of the assurances in the world are in those strong arms that stay around you. And they stay around you. And then the little touches, lets not forget those; the leans, the nudges, the sidles, the quick cheek kisses and the shoulder squeezes, the pressing of thigh to thigh under the table or hip to hip in bed. A whole novel could be written of those.
Or is it the words that are important, the I love yous and the Babes, the You’re so beautifuls and the You make me so happy!s? The secrets whispered at night and the truths coaxed out in pressurized moments of burgeoning trust. The lies we tell for love and the truths we tell for love— do we love those words? Are they love? Can they possibly count?! The letters we write, committing words to paper (or in this world, screens) that we hope say what we, faced with another’s eyes and breaths and words, cannot. The words that arrest us, assure us, validate us and excite us.
“I love you” are words that mean love, surely! Surely.
But forget words, actions are worth thousands of them I hear. Commitments honored, dinners made, presents bought and grandmothers called. Tires fixed and dishes done and lovely date nights and dinners in. Actions are an easy one.
Does love come from the way another person makes you feel? That person sees me, hears me, treasures me and touches me, and I love them for it. To be witnessed is powerful. To be respected, to be admired, to be cherished and protected and touched are not actions we feel from every person we come across, and do they foster love? Do you love someone for loving you? Is that selfish?
Let me add a few more indefinables, because I think they are important: Thrill. And, Delight. When you thrill me, and delight me. Yes, I like those two. I’ll take them, and I’ll take the stretched timeless moment of being held at dusk as well. Lets add stars. I’ll also take the incandescent soap bubble moments that appear amidst all the other moments and leave me breathless, and the I Love Yous at night. Breakfast is nice as well, especially if my foot is under his leg and his hand is on my ankle. I like that detail. Mix in being respected and cherished and protected, with a healthy dash of great sex, and I’ll take all the little moments of touching too (I’m feeling greedy), as well as singing in the car. I’d also soak everything in trust, but… its a fickle thing, trust. Sometimes its there, and sometimes its hard to get enough of it to even dust everything with, much less soak.
Is love the memories you have built together? The good ones and the ones that nearly broke you, that you hold onto like mountains you have conquered, a bit vindictive in your triumph? Is love the future you are peering into, making plans for? The comfort, the knowledge that it will be there, that you will build it together, of what may come? Can love simply be the now? The joy and the happiness and the simplicity of the now? The warmth that may not last but warms better than any fire and the adrenaline that will not last but enervates better than any drug? Is this love to you or is it too fleeting; lusty, childish— dismissible. Should we dismiss joy because we know it may not last? Or, just not label it as Love. Do we dare to call it love?
But then those long relationships, full of habitual I love yous and trust and breakfasts and all those other things— if they don’t have joy anymore, no delight, no thrill… is that love?
And other loves. So many others. Crying when your dog dies and writing my grandpa every week and pride at your best friend’s graduation and those friends who remain with you through the years who even though you hardly ever see call, out of the blue, and you tell them everything, and you love them for calling and for listening.
I love my parents and they love me, and to me that feels as obvious as falling downward, but I know for others it might not be so.
Love of open skies and cheesy pizza and the sea and that moment when you score a perfect goal or close the perfect business deal. Is that still love? Are thrills love, in and of themselves? I love to be up high, with open space around me and room to fall. And to dance. To run breathless across that bright street and now there is rain (or has been rain?) and so my blood is up, and there has been dancing too or there could be, and I am SO IN LOVE. Am I in love with you? Are you there with me? Or am I by myself, running, dancing, laughing in the rain, SO IN LOVE with the world and with myself?
A very good friend recently said that loving himself was important, and is part of what he thinks about when he thinks about love, and I like that. I like that a lot. I have more certainty in my love of pretty boys and open skies and kisses and dancing on foreign shores in the moonlight… but I like that.
What do you think of when you think of love?
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