That’s Amore! – Valentine’s Day Ponderings

(Written February, 2007)

Love is real, real is love
Love is feeling, feeling love
Love is wanting to be loved

Love is touch, touch is love
Love is reaching, reaching love
Love is asking to be loved

Love is you
You and me
Love is knowing
We can be

Love is free, free is love
Love is living, living love
Love is needing to be loved

~John Lennon


I’ve decided that I’m a big fan of the tried and true “middle phase” of love. In other words, not the brand new honeymoon phase (complete with infatuated poems and songs and trinkets and gush) which is nice, but fleeting…and not the phase where you’ve been together so long you might just take each other for granted…but that wonderful in between place.

I wrote a poem for a former boyfriend long ago, and even though he was by FAR not the one for me, I learned a lot about the “in between” place and its underrated benefits. Perhaps deep down I knew I could apply this to anyone I chose to be with…the person with whom I’d eventually share my life.

This is the poem, entitled Valentine.

Valentine (2007)

No valentine in the store had the right words today

For we have come too far for the gushing of new romance

And it is too soon for the tame verses of love that has spanned many years

My heart is full of thoughts that humor and sarcasm should not desecrate

Which leaves only the truest of verses in one’s soul

Today,

Our love is like the cozy, familiar warmth of coming home at a long day’s end

I love knowing the shape and feel of your body

I love how some days it seems there is no warmer, safer place

Than wrapped in your arms as you hold me like priceless crystal

I love being so close, that all we need do is look into each other’s eyes

Where thoughts meet with words unspoken

I love having loved you so long, that the calm we feel

After the most tumultuous, fiery storm

Is like the clearer and more vivid light in the sky after dark clouds have rolled away

Leaving sun-glittered raindrops everywhere

I have learned how to trust a little more, how to give a little more

And when not to give too much

I have learned to laugh at things I once took too seriously

I have learned to stare down fear until it runs away whimpering

And I have learned to let go…take love one moment at a time

I am in awe of your light and the way you shine without even meaning to

I love it when you use compassion and humor to build bridges

I feel so honored to be the one you come home to

Today,

I look forward with hope, faith and perhaps just a little uncertainty

To what lies beyond the next sunrise

And my heart leaps at the thought of the many chances I’ll be given

To learn and grow with you, to make our world larger

In the spirit of this season of love,

Let me thank you with all my heart for loving me so well

And letting me shower love upon you

~Alexandra, 1998

There is something about that warm, steady campfire that feels more comforting and cozy and secure than a huge, blinding, crackling, and scorching bonfire. Bonfires flare up passionately, nearly searing one’s face, and then die down quickly, leaving a sudden chill in their wake. Steady campfires are much nicer than ones that are not being properly stoked…cold, diminished, and about to go out. This is one of my favorite analogies for the phases of love.

Here’s to all of us in romantic love’s various stages. Those who’ve been together and weathered many years or just a few years, those who are engaged, about to make a commitment, who are newly together, or in an undefined stage. Those in friendships just about to catch fire, or who are casually dating. Those caught in “slippage,” or who are thinking of ending it once and for all…and those who are still looking. May we, if we truly want love in our lives and are ready for it (because sometimes we are not and don’t even realize it), enjoy that cozy “in between” campfire of love…

Love in which we can totally be ourselves
Love in which we both accept and honor one another exactly as we are
Love in which we and our mates make each other’s lives larger

Love in which we never stop learning and growing together in the same direction
Love in which we can weather changes and work through conflict quickly
Love in which fidelity is effortless
Love in which we are completely desired

Namaste and Happy Valentine's Day!