LOVE
Me & a friend of mine were having a long, deep discussion on the vast subject of love. My stance on the issue is legendary in the fact that I do not subscribe to the notion of unconditional love. She insisted that love is too mystic & unifying to have conditions. So I decided to ask alot of the people I know what they believed love to be. Every single response so far, because this will be an ongoing project, has been 100% condition bound. In other words, there are things we expect to recieve in return for loving someone. There is reciprocation involved. Each person we know does or at least should have boundaries of sorts, lines which when crossed, bring up red or green flags. And every one of us is so completely different but with one undeniable guideline on the magic of love: there must be mutual respect.
We walk through life collecting scars & memories. Sometimes we wear those on our sleeves, for everyone to see & mull over. But I find that mostly, people keep those things to themselves, away from the prying eyes of the 'general' public. We're somewhat reserved when it comes to baring our heartaches & gushing our joys. There will be no couch juping on national television, no screaming out in sheer delight, and certainly no collar-pulling confessions. All that smacks of gimmick & cliche will not be broadcast. Instead, there will be late night conversations, level gazes ( thank you Spain ), morning hugs, roaring laughter, swift arguments ending in a kiss, and the slow construction of respect. We were all once strangers to our lovers. But there came a moment when we realized that we wanted more from that person. Not quite sure what, but we had a general idea of sweet nothings & frowns turned upside down. So we took that leap & showed our tender bellies, gambled with all we had for that one wish come true. And hopefully, once the novelty wore off, we found ourselves just as smitten as we were a year ago, seven years ago, ten years ago, fifty years ago. That's what love means to me. It's precious, the word is never used frivolously, & its flavor lasts a lifetime.