Love is hard.
Love that is working and winning is hard.
Love that is falling and failing is harder still.
What does love look like in its many splendors, iterations, and disarrays?
It is a hungry mother giving her child the last bite of food in the cupboard.
It is a father working three jobs and still making time between two of them to read a bedtime story to his children each night.
Love is the teacher who buys a pair of gloves or shoes, a hat and a coat, a breakfast or lunch for her student.
Love is listening-- and really hearing--the person across from you or beside you.
It is my mother holding my dad's hand in his hospital bed and talking to him constantly, when the ventilator prevented him from responding in kind. It is her kissing and rubbing the forehead that she has always loved. It is him holding her hand tightly.
It is a father waiting up for his daughter to return after a date. It is this same father holding her while as she cries through tears dripping from her broken heart.
It is a hungry mother giving her child the last bite of food in the cupboard.
It is a father working three jobs and still making time between two of them to read a bedtime story to his children each night.
Love is the teacher who buys a pair of gloves or shoes, a hat and a coat, a breakfast or lunch for her student.
Love is listening-- and really hearing--the person across from you or beside you.
It is my mother holding my dad's hand in his hospital bed and talking to him constantly, when the ventilator prevented him from responding in kind. It is her kissing and rubbing the forehead that she has always loved. It is him holding her hand tightly.
It is a father waiting up for his daughter to return after a date. It is this same father holding her while as she cries through tears dripping from her broken heart.
It is a wife telling her husband to follow his dream of opening a business, knowing the risks and sacrifices that will be required are huge.
Do you remember what love looks like-- in your childhood home, in a honeymoon suite, in the hospital, in church, riding in the car across country, swimming in the local creek? Do you remember?
What is love?
Joan Wickersham offers us seven answers to this question.
She looks at love between husband and wife, parent and child, doctor and patient, caregiver and the cared for-- lovers, friends, and family.
Love.
Her collection of stories defies categorization. Each story carries the same title-- The News from Spain.
In The News from Spain she explores our question in seven responses in seven stories, each linked by the phrase the news from Spain, which occurs in each story -- each story an imaginative and revealing elucidation of love -- somebody's love.In her marvelously connected narratives, subtitled 7 Variations on a Love Story, she offers us seven images of love-- without airbrushing the flaws, nor erasing the frailties.
Love and variations.
In Wedlocked: A Memoir
, Jay Ponteri examines his marriage-- what is, what once was, what might have been, what could be. He is writing a manuscript that offers us variations of his life and marriage. He becomes fascinated/ infatuated with a woman he knows-- she suggests/becomes his main character.. His wife discovers the manuscript...Variations of love.
What is love?
What does it look like?
For more additional comments, images and resources on love, you may want to read the previous post, What Love Got to Do With It?
What does it look like?
For more additional comments, images and resources on love, you may want to read the previous post, What Love Got to Do With It?
Today's Deeper Writing Possibilities
What is love?
What does love look like to you?
Make a list of concrete images, feelings, and evidences for love in your life, the life of someone you know, or life in general.
Is there a phrase that ties all of these images and feelings and evidences together?
Write seven short pieces utilizing this phrase to form a unity between the pieces.
You may choose to write all nonfiction, all poetry or all fiction. You may want to write a mixture of genres.
You may also want to write one piece composed of just seven sentences defining love (or exploring another single theme.)
What does love look like to you?
Make a list of concrete images, feelings, and evidences for love in your life, the life of someone you know, or life in general.
Is there a phrase that ties all of these images and feelings and evidences together?
Write seven short pieces utilizing this phrase to form a unity between the pieces.
You may choose to write all nonfiction, all poetry or all fiction. You may want to write a mixture of genres.
You may also want to write one piece composed of just seven sentences defining love (or exploring another single theme.)
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