In The Meantime

On Love and Lack Thereof 2.0

A year has passed since I wrote my Valentine’s Day post. I have lived in London for a year and a half. I am nearly 23 years old, and I have not had my first kiss, nor been in a romantic relationship. In the past year, I watched friends enter relationships and exit them. A few people I know got married. I downloaded Hinge and deleted it three days later. I fell in momentary love with strangers on the train, in cafes, at bookshops. I sat by myself on benches, and bought one plane ticket home for Christmas. I would be lying if I said that I wrote last year’s post hoping that this year would be different, that releasing acceptance into the world would be the key I needed to open the door to a romantic partnership. Still, it doesn’t surprise me that that isn’t the case — and despite my occasional tears, my longing looks at couples in the park on Sunday mornings, this is the first time in my life that I haven’t felt like romance is something that’s missing.

Growing up, we are defined as part of a family, whether that’s by blood or by a love bond — a part of something whole. When we are torn from that, (geographically, financially, and sometimes emotionally) we embark on a constant search to replace what’s missing. We crave a sense of familiarity, of family, of unconditional love. When I first left home, I did so with a sparkling hope for romance. The holes in my life were neglected until I felt the wind whistle through them. I moved back home for two years and felt part of a whole again, so moving out made the holes feel bigger, more empty. My hope for romance was extinguished by a new sense of reality, and a familiarity with isolation. I tried other things. I read books. I made many friends and saw them often. I bought myself flowers. Slowly, the holes were patched with gifted fabrics, thread, and badges of experience. Whenever I returned home, it was like a girl scout returning from a retreat: my vest more colorful with every visit.

Here is a cherished poem, “Love After Love” by Derek Walcott:

The time will come 
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving 
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome 

and say, sit here. Eat. 
You will love again the stranger who was your self. 
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you 

all your life, whom you ignored 
for another, who knows you by heart. 
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, 

the photographs, the desperate notes, 
peel your own image from the mirror. 
Sit. Feast on your life. 

It was my reading of bell hooks’ all about love that helped me reframe my idea of love as an action rather than simply a sensation. For so long, I thought of love as something I found, or something that would find me. Once I let go of this expectation, everything appeared to me differently. Life is anything but a series of queues. It’s more like walking up to a restaurant, seeing a line, and going for a walk in the park. Then, you circle back and find the perfect seat open by the window. It comes down to a choice: to wait, or see what else is around. I chose the latter this year. I am taking my time, embarking on my search, and finding love everywhere: new neighborhoods, deep and shallow friendships, and the shards of sunlight that fall from holes in the clouds. Of course, there are some days I wake up extra lonely. It’s harder to open the door to myself, and to other people. To make the conscious choice to turn the knob. But when I do, more often than not, I am relieved. A welcomed hug squeezes the pieces of myself back into place.

bell hooks writes in all about love:

When we see love as the will to nurture one's own or another's spiritual growth, revealed through acts of care, respect, knowing, and assuming responsibility, the foundation of all love in our life is the same. There is no special love exclusively reserved for romantic partners. Genuine love is the foundation of our engagement with ourselves, with family, with friends, with partners, with everyone we choose to love.

My family and I go to the beach every summer. Since I’ve been tall enough, I’ve loved diving through the approaching waves with my dad, my uncle, and later, my younger sisters. I remember days in late summer when the waves were high and strong: we’d plunge under, and quickly look back to check that nobody got swept across the sand. The last few summers we’ve gone in June or July, and the bigger waves come few and far between. My sisters and I float through the water, talking and laughing and playing games. And then, when the waves come, we dive headfirst. But the most fulfilling moments are those in the in-between, head above open water. They aren’t full of waiting anymore — just floating with what comes, in sun-kissed joy.

by Laura Jones

By this new definition of love — as action — I wake up every morning faced with a decision: will I choose to love today? Will I look in the mirror and see myself as human? As worthy? Most days, I try to revolt against feelings of loneliness. I’ll make myself a tea and read on the couch, or go for a walk in the park. Occasionally I’ll explore a new neighborhood, buy flowers, or spontaneously meet up with a friend. My threshold varies, but it takes effort, consciously or not. I always thought of love as something that would happen to me. It would chase me down the street, or follow me through days and weeks, and one day I can finally turn around and say: ah, there you are. How lucky I am. I don’t think it works that way.

Here’s Michael Gray’s poem “I Think Love Is Something That Happens to Other People”:

like winning the lottery / or finding God in your sock drawer. 
I think love is something 
that happens to other people -- nebulous,
distant, an invention of the movies; I think love 
is like death / as in, 
it happens to everyone but you
until it happens / to you,
and then where else could you be 
but in love? Where else could you be but in 
the belly of the beast, / that oozing cavern
where people go in fairy tales? I think
love 
is a creation. I think maybe you shape it 
with your hands, I think maybe you find it 
stuck in your molars, I think maybe it comes to you 
when you're in the shower, your face tilted 
towards the water while your mind melts somewhere
else, I think maybe 
we've all been naming it wrong. 
You know that love? That falling-to-your-knees love? 
That where'd-the-water-go love? That 
hold-me-close-I'll-never-leave-I-know-your-favorite-
coffee-creamer love? That what-we-talk-about-when-we-
talk-about-love love? You ever felt that? I mean, 
really felt any of that? / Yeah, tell me again
how you feel it. Yeah, tell me again / how it fills 
the chest, fills the head, fills the 
lungs. Tell me 
again
what it means to find God in your sock drawers. Tell me
again. 

I have thought a lot about this poem. Our idea of love relies on how it’s marketed: a big, pompous, all-expansive feeling, the plot of a life, a marker of the end of a story and the start of another. It’s a lot about “getting lucky”. But also, it isn’t. The idea of “finding God in your sock drawers” is more so a recognition of the divine among the mundane. Maybe it’s always there, but it takes effort to see it. There are days that the sun filters through my window at a certain angle, and once I notice it, everything thereafter feels illumined. I remember one day in August I spent three hours talking with a friend at a bakery in Waterloo, then walked home in my maxi dress and watched the sunlight trickle through the leaves. It was hot, and I bought an ice cream cone from the corner shop. It melted all over my hand. Still, I got home, shoulders red and hands sticky, and thought: How lucky I am.

One of my main efforts at self-care is buying fresh flowers. My family never bought them growing up, and it was mainly something people would gift us. My grandpa always bought my grandma orchids. My dad gets my mom a bouquet every year on Valentine’s Day. Out of habit, I never bought them for myself, waiting until someone entered my life who would buy them for me. One cold day in October 2021, homesick and lonely, I went to Columbia Road and bought myself orange tulips. They reminded me of my grandma, and they brightened my kitchen. I made a habit of it. The flowers flourished as I did, pushing myself to make friends and find my way in a new city. On my birthday in March, I invited three friends over for tea and cake. They all brought me flowers.

I don’t think love is an occurrence. I think it takes effort and shaping. Maybe it won’t produce fruit right away, but the soil still needs tending. I’m trying to take care of all my patches, keep myself whole. Today, I can look at my life and think: Of course I know what love is. Of course I do. I have received so much, and I still have so much to give.

I shared this poem last year, but it means a lot to me, so here it is again.

“Of Love” by Mary Oliver:

I have been in love more times than one,
thank the Lord. Sometimes it was lasting
whether active or not. Sometimes
it was all but ephemeral, maybe only
an afternoon, but not less real for that.
They stay in my mind, these beautiful people,
or anyway beautiful people to me, of which
there are so many. You, and you, and you,
whom I had the fortune to meet, or maybe
missed. Love, love, love, it was the
core of my life, from which, of course, comes
the word for the heart. And, oh, have I mentioned
that some of them were men and some were women
and some — now carry my revelation with you —
were trees. Or places. Or music flying above
the names of their makers. Or clouds, or the sun
which was the first, and the best, the most
loyal for certain, who looked so faithfully into
my eyes, every morning. So I imagine
such love of the world — its fervency, its shining, its
innocence and hunger to give of itself — I imagine
this is how it began.

---

I used to dread this day every year, thinking it would only be a reminder of what I don’t have. Over the past few years, it has morphed into quite the opposite. I am so lucky to have so much to love in my life: my family, my friends, books, poetry, pastries, sunlight. It has become my favorite holiday.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

<3

Love,

Tara