Questions on love
Why are there so many rules against loving? External, certainly, especially in this country since the religious fanatics seized power, but even more frightening to me are my internal limitations.
People have loved me, and I've loved them; and yet, my manifestations of love have been so very inadequate.
Why are there rules?
Why do fears win over excitment and curiosity?
Surely, this is not who I am.
I met a woman, and she was all sunshine and krinkly-nosed laughter. She moved me so, and I could have kissed her little face all day. More lovely still, she would have wanted me to. I didn't, not nearly enough. This woman found herself a new woman and who could blame her.
Jeanette Winterson asks "Why is the measure of love loss?"
Is it though? Not for everyone. For my little krinkly-nosed wonder it is not. For her, the measure of love is laughter and warmth. Why are some of us drawn to the darker side of love? Those of us who are should be shipped off to a little island of our own (no, heavens no, not the same island reserved for the exiled American religious fanatics), where we could work out our little issues in some sort of labor camp and then neatly reassimilate into society so that we do not hurt the good and the healthy, the little sparkles of cuteness that actually want to perpetuate joy.
"Why is the measure of love loss?"
Is it though? Even for me, in my safe little world of retrospect, where fears do not prevent me from feeling the love given to me in the past, I remember the tenderness most vividly: the smell of her ear, the coo turn small snore in her breathing at night, though she insisted she was no snorer. These memories are my measure of love.
And I want it again.
Perhaps, though, loss is a potion that snaps us from a dreamy detachment, a fear of loss that prevents closeness when it is being offered.
I want to drink that potion while there is still hope, and not when it is too late. Please tell me if you have such a potion.
jem
People have loved me, and I've loved them; and yet, my manifestations of love have been so very inadequate.
Why are there rules?
Why do fears win over excitment and curiosity?
Surely, this is not who I am.
I met a woman, and she was all sunshine and krinkly-nosed laughter. She moved me so, and I could have kissed her little face all day. More lovely still, she would have wanted me to. I didn't, not nearly enough. This woman found herself a new woman and who could blame her.
Jeanette Winterson asks "Why is the measure of love loss?"
Is it though? Not for everyone. For my little krinkly-nosed wonder it is not. For her, the measure of love is laughter and warmth. Why are some of us drawn to the darker side of love? Those of us who are should be shipped off to a little island of our own (no, heavens no, not the same island reserved for the exiled American religious fanatics), where we could work out our little issues in some sort of labor camp and then neatly reassimilate into society so that we do not hurt the good and the healthy, the little sparkles of cuteness that actually want to perpetuate joy.
"Why is the measure of love loss?"
Is it though? Even for me, in my safe little world of retrospect, where fears do not prevent me from feeling the love given to me in the past, I remember the tenderness most vividly: the smell of her ear, the coo turn small snore in her breathing at night, though she insisted she was no snorer. These memories are my measure of love.
And I want it again.
Perhaps, though, loss is a potion that snaps us from a dreamy detachment, a fear of loss that prevents closeness when it is being offered.
I want to drink that potion while there is still hope, and not when it is too late. Please tell me if you have such a potion.
jem
posted by jemcollections at 2:17 PM
1 Comments:
jem, you are singing the same song so many of us have on repeat in our hearts. Looking everywhere but not finding it, we can't help but wonder what's wrong with those of us who do measure love by the empty space left behind when we lose it. Some of us drive it away on purpose, some of us don't know it's there until it's gone. Why? I'm psyched that you're asking the question at all. You'll never find the answer if you don't look. And here's to the day you find it. Once you do, and I know you will, you'll wonder why you even had to ask.
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