Love is..

I wrote a whole list of things and realized they sounded like a chain of platitudes and weren't any sort of definition, but personal landmarks. Love defies definition. It's something that grabs your emotions and puts them on the most crazy, vertigo-inducing rollercoaster imaginable and makes you hold on tight and scream in fear all at the same time. Not just romantic love - any love, because to give that much of oneself is pretty freaking scary. Love isn't about being afraid of losing someone, it's about the joy they brought to your life by being a part of it. The worst tragedy I can think of would be letting someone I loved leave my life without knowing down to their very atoms how much I love them.

Years ago, Gunnar Nelson posted a poem that grabbed me, arrested my attention, and hasn't let me go. It haunts me. It's beautiful and rather tragic, and makes me wonder if the person writing was writing it to someone else, or themself. I wonder if they ever found the answers. The poem more or less defines love for me. Not the way you might think. When I read it and my heart and lungs feel like someone's grabbed them, and my next breath and heartbeat bring with them an enormous rush of joy and awe, and my next thoughts are of the beauty and wonder of everything around me and I can point to one thing and say 'This is what caused these feelings in me!' - that's love.


It doesn't interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for,
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love,
for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon.
I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow.
if you have been opened by life's betrayals or
have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own,
without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own;
if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful,
be realistic, or to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true,
I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself.
if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.

I want to know if you can be faithful and therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see beauty, even when it is not pretty every day,
and if you can source your life from It's presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours or mine,
and still stand on the edge of a lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, "YES!"

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up after a night of grief and despair,
weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done for the children.

It doesn't interest me who you are or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself,
and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

-Anonymous