On love (New York)

For those who haven’t noticed I’m not much for inspirational quotes, mantras, yogi tea type idioms or sunset backdrop sayings. I grew up the daughter of a 2nd generation Holocaust survivor and a stern albeit heavily traumatized war veteran. Emotions weren’t high on the list of things that were discussed around the kitchen table. Or at all. Which is why the following post might seem out of character for those who know me.

I don’t talk about love nearly as much as I talk about life and death. Love, to me, has always been far more terrifying. The former have experation dates. Love, on the other hand, is said to be eternal. And I did and do, in fact, always believe it is so. Quantum physics notwithstanding, the concept of Eternity is something I admittedly can’t wrap my brain around, and such, I shy away from all topics related. 

The thing about love that fascinates me, is that it’s not only eternal, it’s endless. 

We give it (almost unbeknownst to us), to say, a person we meet at a coffee shop or bar, within a few months, or weeks, or even days’ time. And there it is. Our love, our invisible or obvious love is floating out there with someone else’s name on it. They might grab it right away, pull it close, and keep it. And actually, we want them to. We want it to be accepted, and ideally we want someone else’s love in return. Often times it is and it seems to be an equal exchange, the accounts balance and you have the same amount of love in you as before.

But the amazing thing happens when it’s not taken, or ignored, or it’s taken and then discarded, or worse. And then we’re hurt. We’re hurt not because we gave our love away but because it was unwanted. And this in and of itself requires that we understand the following: It’s limitless. There is more love on the planet than any other resource. Think about it. The thing that makes the living world go round - from the moment we’re born we require a form of it (care, tenderness) - we all need it, more fundamentally than fuel or food or anything but air. This resource is infinite and it is all stored up within you. And the proof is that when we are hurting because our love is unwanted, weeks or months or days later we have this Ah Hah moment. You might be walking home from the gym or doing the dishes or petting a dog or sitting on Mount Everest but where ever it is and whatever you’re doing, you smile to yourself- the most genuine and content of smiles, and in your deepest thoughts you say to yourself: hah. Dude. Don’t stress about it. It’s ok. I’m ok. It’s ok because I have more.

And in due time you’ll send your love floating out there with someone else’s name on it -maybe a family member, a new born child, a new lover , a new friend, and you’re not worried that you might be short on supplies, you only hope that they’ll accept it. And this is because you know, you’re a well that can never ever dry.

Inside you is the stuff that makes the world go round. You have it and you can give and receive it and it will be there, forever. Even if I can’t understand it.