From the editor...
Love Is...
“Love is (means), never having to say you are sorry...”
As most romantics of a certain age know, this was a very famous line from one of the greatest movies on the subject of “amore” to ever play out on the big screen. I remember what it felt like as a young girl coming out of the movie theater as I wondered what it would be like to have someone pine over me the way Ryan O’neal pined over the character played by Ali McGraw. I thought my heart could not possibly ever know the depth of what those two experienced in Love Story; and so it goes with young folk and old folk too...
There are so many images that one sees over the course of a lifetime, many of which are just that — images with no real connection to what it means to love another human being.
From the time we are able to sense the touch of another person, we recognize the power and the sheer magnetism that causes one to be poetically drawn into the sacred emotional sphere of another person. Love is one of those inexplicable occurrences that just is, with no rhyme or reason for why or who our hearts choose to love. And when there are elements that interfere with what is natural, and real, things have a way of winding up where they were never intended.
When the movie Love Story played out in small towns and big cities alike, people were able to pretty much leave it to their imaginations to write their own perfect ending with not a lot of pressure to have their personal love story end a certain way. They were allowed to dream and stay in that dream for as long as they needed to be there. The other side of choosing to exist in such a place, however, is that many became stuck , never making that vital connection to what was “for real”.
And this brings me to the most poignant line of the movie — love (means) or is... As a hopeless romantic, I could not imagine a world without love. I think a great deal of my existence is spent searching for ways in which to show the people around me that they occupy a special place that is reserved for a select few. Perhaps one of the sweetest lines I have heard yet of expressions of love came from my daughter during an interview when she shared that “cooking for someone is her way of saying, I love you”. Expressions of love are just that, ideas that are translated from the images we see all around us of ways we choose to communicate our affection.
As someone who has exercised her heart muscles vigorously over the years, I would say that for all the pain, disappointment, and sheer joy love can bring, it is by far worth the workout.
“Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not behave in an unbecoming manner. It does not seek to serve itself, it is not easily provoked and its thoughts are always good”. If you have the most valuable treasures on earth, and have not love, you have nothing.
Love is...
Deigratia,
Bonnie
