Love is

Love is a many-splendid thing, it is also a source for not-so-splendid sensations. It is utterly beautiful, breath-taking, awesome. Yet, it is a pipe's song luring you off cliffs; what lies below is a mystery.

It fills quiet moments with secret joys, seemingly unexplainable smiles and laughs and exclamations, "Oh, I know someone who will love this!" It makes the days and weeks go by faster, as if the very orbs of heaven were under its sway. It makes mere seconds become centuries, as if two people could hideaway from the world like Rip van Winkle, sharing one dream. 

It makes conversations take this level of import that salespeople and office managers can only fantasize of creating in their own. Those mysteriously beautiful moments just sharing words are such treasures that when they are absent it is unmistakable, as well. Which is to say, love creates expectations. We long for a certain level of intimacy, for a certain degree of closeness by which we can share these private joys. The irrational heart is too selfish to accommodate "reasonable demands" which takeaway its promised bounty.

So, Love creates the sorrow that only placing perfection in an imperfect world can. It is the power that moves mountains, but those mountains have a course all their own. It helps us enjoy the smaller things, but blinds us to the bigger. It makes a lifetime not seem long enough, but a week an unacceptable turmoil.

We feel those we love in our hearts now, especially now, despite them not being close. They are a fire that burns hot in our chests, providing us comfort in a cold world. We are never alone, never unwanted, never forgotten. It is a gift, one that sparks and spits when its orbit brushes against anything else, and is so bright when closest we don't think we will ever see again, nor want to.

Love.

(C) Michael Mosher 2010