Crazy little thing
Do you remember those ‘Love Is…’ cartoons? You have to be of a certain vintage to know what I’m talking about. The apparently genitally deprived hetero couple, she with the false eyelashes and simper, he much less featureless. There were these cutesy, mortifying one liners accompanying the simple line cartoon. My taste ran more to Hagar the Horrible or Asterix, Calvin and Hobbes or Tintin but hey, I knew people who cut out and treasured the ‘Love Is…’ clippings from the comics section of the newspaper – every day, for years.
Love is…giving her a flower for no reason. Or Love is…holding his hand in the movie theatre. Very sweet. But love is other things as well.
Love is…patiently reading the newspaper to your blind wife every morning, carefully avoiding the bits about hated politicians. She’ll hear about it on the tv later
anyway and chew your head off. Why ruin a quiet morning?
Love is…letting her sleep in for fifteen more minutes. Using that time to clean the kitchen and get breakfast started. Every morning for twenty four years. But restricting the weekend afternoon nap to forty five minutes or she’ll be grouchy all evening.
Love is…remembering that this one likes his dosai thin but soft, the other likes them thick and soft and Mr. Picky will only eat a thin, crispy dosai. Rotating them so that each of your boys gets the one he likes. Making dosai till your pores reek of ghee.
Love is…your teenager cradling his grandmother in his arms so that you can straighten the sheets on her hospital bed. Laying her down gently and then retreating to his room. Hugging you unexpectedly because he can’t find the words as she lies dying in his home.
Love is…holding her in your arms as she lies feverish and sick. Suggesting marriage may be a good idea so that you can look after each other. The romance is in the steadfastness of that promise.
Love is…learning to enjoy action movies and sappy romances so that you can keep him company every evening when he relaxes in front of the tv, rerun after rerun. Biting your tongue and keeping the snarky comments to a minimum except for when it gets too much to bear. Watching him tear up and laughing gently with him.
Love is…leaving home early and returning home early too. Though she grumbles, she loves that you set the best example to your office staff. Never taking a day off, except when the babies were born and when her mother died.
Love is…fights that would last a minute if it were up to you. But she’s a sulker. She broods and agonises and wastes time. So you bring the apology even if she’s the one being irrational. She knows this. She tries harder to be the first to the table. You love her for trying. She loves you for the quicksilver temper that is gone before it has time to fester. She doesn’t get it but she loves you for it.
She knows though. She knows the love that you offer is the only kind that matters – not unconditional but in spite of all the conditions. Your love has been untainted with doubt. It is why she loves lighthouses so. Your love has been that steady light in her storms. She has loved you in the best way she knows how. It is full of fault lines, her love, with pitfalls of past hurt and defeat, a cracked and rough love – and that is miraculously, wonderfully, enough for you.
There is such a reluctance to these words. There’s a ruefully Nazar lag jaye gi coyness that won’t allow the words to flow. Try as I might to sternly banish such frivolity, I still shy away from writing about this mostly indescribable and intangible emotion.
It is not the domain of humans alone, this love. I have seen plants lovingly respond to murmured words of encouragement and love or wither away (in spite of the most expensive growth medium, sunlight and water) when they feel neglected and uncared for. We know the dogs and cats that take up residence in our hearts and never leave, of horses that run their great hearts out for their riders, of wild animals that remember humans who cared for them in their orphaned baby years. Even a specially planted butterfly garden or a scattering of seed for the local bird life – aren’t these gestures of love as well, a love for all life?
There is no logic, no rational explanation for this tie between living things. It can’t be forced nor denied. It comes, it goes, wanes and waxes without warning. Worst of all, it is lost easily, one careless word, one thoughtless gesture, when it took years to find. It’s the easiest thing to take for granted and the hardest thing to replace. We misplace it, throw it away, run from it. Yet it never gives up on us. It offers second chances, forgiveness and redemption. It is a thing of courage and hope. This strange thing we call Love.