Velvet Verbosity

“Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don’t know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings.” ~Anais Nin

Love is such a misunderstood word.  We confuse it for lust, obsession, loneliness, and need.  We want it more than we give it, and the less we feel we receive it, the less we give of it.  People talk of true love and soul mates when they have yet to taste these things.  We use the word to express all of our intense desires, like “I LOVE those shoes!”, or “I LOVED that movie!”.

Poets, novelists, philosophers, and songwriters write about love.  Entire movie plot lines are built up around love.  Love is everywhere, talked about incessantly in all forms, and yet still we so often remain confused about what it really is.  Sometimes it’s easier to say what love isn’t, rather than what it is.

My pick of the week is from the Night Blogger, who someday will dedicate a novel to me and send me a first edition signed copy.  Why?  Because I LOVE her writing.

I can hear him breathe and the sound is like the ocean to me; as close as my own heartbeat. I wonder if he’ll hate me when I’m gone, or if he’ll love me more when so much time has passed that all he can remember are the perfect moments. He won’t remember in twenty years that I left him. Only that I was there.

It’s not easy. Matters of the soul never are, but this time the pain leaves me frozen inside. That last moment burns in my memory.

I brush my fingertips across his forehead and slip away.

In other words…

• For the love of cows.
  
• For the love of children.
  
• For the love of husbands and wives.
• Don’t call it love.

For those of you that are new, welcome!  And for those of you lurking, visiting, or serendipitously stumbling your way here, speak up, we’d love to hear what you have to say in 100 words.  (If you need a debriefing on the challenge, go here)  This week’s word comes from Richard Ford’s A Multitude of Sins, which I plan to curl up with right after this post.

Situation

It took me three tries this week to not land on “the” or “there”.  So let me see, dear readers, what kind of situations you can get us into.

With love,