What About Love...

So, I’ve Been Thinking… 

about love, that elusive, all-consuming emotion. The one we lose sleep over, songs become hits over, inscribed in poetry, and in our dreams, the lifelong pursuit of happily ever after with that one soul we’re destined to find. I can’t help but question that while we’ve been promised that the serendipitous romantic journey, the Hollywood happy ending is the be-all and end-all, love itself is not so simply defined. 

During my last visit to  The Louvre Museum as I waited in line to spend coveted time with Mona, a sweet couple caught my eye. They were considerably older than I, and as I watched them move about the crowded room, the deep connection they shared became beautifully clear. I fell in love with them – the story of them, at least as I imagined it to be. Completely in tune with each other, they slowly advanced through the exhibits. She gently adjusted his cashmere scarf as he took her fingers and wrapped them through his. Leading her along, not because she needed his help, rather because he craved her touch, their fingers and lives intertwined, moving as one. They strolled, taking in the masters works before them as she whispered in his ear, he tucked a loose hair behind hers. Theirs was a dance of the love that evolves for those who travel life’s long road together. 

And that got me thinking about love, that how we show it, feel it, want it, shifts dramatically with the passage of time. Romantic love gets top billing but so many other loves carry us gently through our days. As we age the myriad of ways we embrace and give love are at least as, and oftentimes more essential to our survival.  

Three years ago, I lost my beloved bulldog, Bruno. It was traumatic, and much as he lived his life, wildly dramatic. He and I were in LA visiting my son. After talking with family and making the necessary arrangements, the call that came next, and without hesitation was to my college roommate, my dearest friend of 40 years. As I stood on the corner of Fairfax and 3rd sobbing into the phone, it was her voice that comforted me. It was her love that wrapped its arms around me from 3,000 miles away. Her sweet, caring words that got me through the next hours. I love her. 

Platonic love, intimacy in friendship that is so much more than Merriam Webster could ever define: 

in·ti·ma·cy

/ˈin(t)əməsē/

Noun

close familiarity or friendship; closeness

Interesting right? Sex is nowhere in the definition. Intimacy, especially in reference to romantic love seems to imply that it is an integral part, yet truly it is emotional closeness that most accurately characterizes intimacy. I notice its value so much more as the years pass. The close emotional relationship I have with my friends is essential, one of the many pieces of the puzzle. Intimacy is present in appreciation of our histories, months and years of memories created, dreams and secrets shared, life’s losses, and gains. Experienced and written in the books of our lives, by and for the ones we’ve chosen, who’ve chosen us to walk this path together. 

I’ve learned that with each passing decade one love does not replace another. The gratification I get from my friends, differs greatly from that of my husband, my children, my birth family, my pets. Each provide a necessary contribution to my overall emotional well-being. Allowing ourselves to feel is key to understanding what love in all its iterations can be. An expression of our deeper selves shared openly, vulnerably with another. Whether succumbing to the passionate embrace of a romantic partner, traveling an unexpected path with a friend, cuddling a pet, caring for an aging relative, nurturing the roses in the garden, my God, the list is endless!  We’ve spent centuries trying to understand “it”. But it is who, what, where we find and give love that ultimately defines us. 

“There are as many forms of love as there are moments in time.”
~Jane Austen

I often reflect on my visit to the Louvre, recalling Mona’s smile, in all its enigmatic ambiguity, from a very different perspective. On a cold December day, halfway around the world, I watched a couple I didn’t know, speaking a language I didn’t fully understand. And it occurred to me that just maybe she’s known all along that the universal language isn’t so hard to define after all.